Google This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Usage guidelines Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you: + Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes. + Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. + Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. + Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http : //books . google . com/| HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. ^ BY EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY, PROKBSSOR OF HISTORY IN UNIVBRSITV COLLEGB, LONDON. >>.-» I LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1878 f^H IHbt. 1% HARVARD UNIVERSITY LfBRARY JUL 09 1991 CONTENTS. CATILINE {Fortnightly Review, 1865) .... CLODIUS (Fortnightly Review A^^^) TIBERIUS. Part I. {Fortnightly Review, 1867) . TIBEBIUS. Part II. {FortnighUy Review, 1868) NECKER AND CALONNE, An Old Story {Fortnightly Revietc 1869) PAOB 1 39 85 114 149 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY TT CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. ^i^ CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. ^/ BY EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY, PKOKBSSOR OF HISTORY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, I^NDON. .-. - / LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1878 CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. ^ BY EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY, ,EGE. PUOKBSSOR OF HISTORY IM UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, IX)NDON. h. O ^^^*^ f \ . LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1878 ari iHb$. 1% HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY JUL 9 1991 CONTENTS. PA.GB CATILINE {Fortnightly Review, 1866) 1 CLODIUS {Fortnightly Review, \^^^) 39 TIBERIUS. Part I. {Fortnightly Review, 1867) .... 86 TIBERIUS. Pabt II. {FortnighUy Review, 1868) .114 NECKER AND CALONNE, An Old Story {Fortnightly Review, 1869) 149 f^H 7H(pt, 1% HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY JUL 9 1991 CONTENTS. CATILINE {Fortnighay Review, 1866) 1 CLODIUS {Fortnightly Review, 1^^^) 39 TIBERIUS. Part I. (Fortnightly Review, 1867) .... 86 TIBERIUS. Part II. {Fortnightly Review, 1868) .114 NECKER AND CALONNE, An Old Story {Fortnightly Review. 1869) 149 B.C. 67 66 65 64 63 62 Consuls. 68 I L. Caecilius Metellus Q. Marcius Rex. C. Calpurnius Piso M\ Acilius Glabrio M\ ^miliuB Lepidus L. Volcatius TuUus L. Aurelius Gotta L. Manlius Torquatus L. Julius Caesar C. Marcius Pigulus M. Tullius Cicero C. AntoniuB D. Junius Silanus L. Licinius Murena Catiline Praetor. Catiline Propraetor in Africa. }9 So-called, " First Conspiracy of Catiline to kill Cotta and Torquatus when they should enter on office. Catiline prevented from standing for Consulship by prosecution for malversation in Africa. Catiline stands for Consul- ship, but is defeated by Cicero. CatiUne again stands for Con- sulship, but is defeated by Silanus and Murena, the election having been put off till Oct. 28. Catiline leaves Rome Nov. 8-9. Arrest and execution of his friends, Deo. 4-5. Catiline defeated and slain at Pistoria early in the year. CATILINE. i TF in the political life of our own time we are too J- much in the habit of judging men with reference to party, in our views of history we are equally prone to judge parties with reference to men. There is a natural and perhaps laudable prejudice in favour of a political party which numbers among its ranks the men who have the reputation of decency, probity, and respectability. But is it so clear that such men are likely to be on the right side in political struggles ? Their virtues, if genuine, are no doubt, from a public point of view, valuable ; but it is un- questionable that they are virtues frequently found in conjunction with narrow minds and timid spirits. If this class of men had a preponderating influence, human progress must cease. Moreover, ill-natured as it may seem, we cannot avoid observing that these virtues are simulated more easily, more naturally, and more unconsciously than any others. The citizen who has wealth and a dignified position 1 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. ^ BY EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY, PKOKBSSOR OP HISTORY IN UNIVERSITY COLL^I?, LONDON. L ^ ^s / LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1878 CATILINE, CLODIUS, AND TIBERIUS. ^ BY EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY, PKOKBSSOR OF HISTORY IM UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. h _ ^V^^ ' I LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1878 f^ri IHb"^. 11 HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY JUL 09 1991 CONTENTS. FAGB CATILINE (Fortnightly Review, 1866) 1 CLODIUS (Fortnightly Review, 1^^^) 39 TIBERIUS. Part I. (Fortnightly Review, 1867) .... 85 TIBEBIUS. Part II. (Fortnightly Review, 1868) .114 NECKER AND CALONNE, An Old Story (Fortnightly Review, 1869) 149 f^ri iHip-^. 1% HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY JUL 09 1991 CONTENTS. ■ • CATILINE (Fortnighay Review, 1866) CLODIUS {Fortnightly Review, \^m) . TIBERIUS. Pabt I. (Fortnightly Review, 1867) . TIBERIUS. Part II. {Fortnightly Review, 1868) NECKER AND CALONNE, An Old Story {Fortnightly Review 1 39 86 114 149 i6 CATILINE. among his own associates, and gave more distinct ex- pression to their aims than was the case with any one of the chiefs of the opposite faction. To that grand array of aristocratic gravity, of military renown, of learning and eloquence, of austere and indomitable virtue, were opposed the genius and resources of one man/' &c. The Emperor Napoleon has not put forward this view more strongly than the English historian. Every law that is proposed emanates from Ceesar. Every prosecution is instigated by Csesar. The idol of the populace is Csesar. The very provincials rest their hopes on Caesar. The sole thought of the oligarchy sleeping and waking is to parry the blows of Caesar. Well, but if this hypothesis be true, — if the masses follow Caesar, and the wealthy classes Cicero and Cato, — where are we to look for the party of Catiline, the party which thought itself strong enough to revolutionise the state, and, according to Cicero, was within an ace of doing so ? This is a question which sensible men are not ashamed to answer by maunder- ing about "dissolute youth," "insolvent debtors," and " disbanded soldiers." Any explanation must be preferable to such transparent nonsense. The fact is that the acknowledged leader of the popular party, after the departure of Pompeius, was not Cains Julius Caesar, but Lucius Sergius Catilina. When Caesar's grand career had closed, and men'gi eyes were still dazzled by the glorious effulgence, CATILINE. 17 they naturally ransacked their own memories or the traditions of their elders, if perchance they might glean some fragments of information respecting the early life of the hero. They did not gather much ; for CaBsar's early years had not greatly impressed his contemporaries. What they did gather we may be sure they made the most of. Every anecdote was treasured up, and every anecdote is characteristic. Now the most characteristic anecdotes of great men are generally the least aiithentic. Perhaps they are not, for that reason, the less valuable, since they represent the impression a man has produced on the contemporary or succeeding generation. But we (must be careful how we arrange them alongside of facts, or spin out inferences from them. Suetonius, Plutarch, and Dion Cassius, writing long afterwards, were naturally disposed to attribute an importance to little facts in Csesar s early career, which in the eyes 3 fi 12 (^t. 30) Marries Jnlia. (^t. 86) Retires to Ehodes. A.D. 2 4 3} (^t. 44) Betnms to Borne, (-^t. 46) Adopted by Augustus. V 14 (iEt. 56) EMPEROR. jy 26 (-^t. 68) Withdraws from Rome. 3i 37 {Mt. 78) Death. TIBERIUS. (a LEOTUBE DELIYERED at BRADFORD, MARCH 27, 1867.) Part I. I HAVE to-night to bespeak your patience and impartiality while I endeavour to deal fairly and dispassionately with one of the most celebrated names of ancient history. I do not under-estimate the overwhelming weight of prejudice against which I have to contend. Emperors are not looked on with favour in England — ^neither modern nor ancient emperors. And of all who have borne that unpopu- lar title in ancient or modem times, perhaps not one has been regarded with such detestation as the Emperor Tiberius. Most educated people have read something about him in their boyhood, and the very name calls up to their recollection images of gloomy misanthropy, of life-long • hypocrisy, of slow but implacable hate, of remorseless cruelty. A city crouching in terror through a long reign, the air heavy with an odour of the dungeon and 86 TIBERIUS. the reek of blood, a wearisome monotony of state trials, the spy invading the family circle, the execu- tioner ever plying his halter, a loathsome old man wallowing in foulest excesses in a secluded island, where neither groans nor curses can reach him— such is the picture transmitted to posterity by the most eloquent of historians : a picture how false, how contradictory, how insulting to common-sense, I shall endeavour to show you to-night. Do not suppose that I take a perverse pleasure in maintain- ing a paradox. I value history too highly to trifle with it ; and it is because I grieve to see two hun- dred years of history turned into nonsense that I would fain bring the light of common-sense to bear on the character and work of some of the leading personages of the Roman Eevolution. Before dealing with Tiberius himself, it will be proper to give some general view of the political and social state of the Roman world in which he moved. You are all aware that the Republic (as it is called) was overthrown by Julius Caesar ; that the murder of that incomparable man was followed by a period of civil war and anarchy; that his nephew Augijstus at last established himself as sole ruler; and that after a long reign Augustus was succeeded by his stepson Tiberius. Now I must first ask you to dismiss from your minds all those prepossessions in favour of the Republican Government which are TIBERIUS. 87 derived from its name. It was no Eepublic. It was that worst of all governments, the monopoly of power by a privileged class. You know what that means. A single man ruling with despotic power must take some thought for the well-being of his subjects, or his reign will not last long. But a privileged class with immense landed property, with a degraded agricultural population crawling below its feet at an immeasurable depth, snarled at and worshipped by the moneyed men who hope one day to enter its ranks, wielding its power through the agency of a deliberative assembly consisting mainly of noblemen and their nominees — such a class, I say, can perform with security feats of injustice and oppression from which a despot would recoil with dismay. Wrapping up its arbitrary action in solemn constitutional jargon, evading responsibility by dividing it, arrogating a popular origin by the farce of popular election, it has not one, but a thou- sand greedy maws to be filled at the public expense, a thousand idle hands ready for any mischief, and (let us add) in the day of retribution a thousand necks where the despot has but one. Such a class was the Roman aristocracy. Such a deliberative assembly was the Boman senate. There had been a time when this aristocracy had ruled by the best of all titles — that of merit. But that time had long gone by. The descendants of 88 TIBERIUS, the men who had tamed and organised Italy, who had beaten back the Keltic barbarian, who had struck down Carthage and Macedon, had lost every private and public virtue that had distinguished those old nobles, retaining nothing but their obsti- nacy and ferocity. Their fathers had conquered the world, and they were devouring it. Such a horde of blood-suckers and extortioners never before or since festened on an oppressed people. A groan went up from the whole civilised world. When the great nobles had shorn their wretched subjects, the moneyed men came and flayed them. The plunder of the world was poured into the imperial city, where it was lavished in political corruption and vulgar luxury. This state of things could not have lasted long. It was not this which Eome had promised to the nations when she incorporated them. If Csesar had not risen up and taken this vile oligarchy by the throat, the solid fabric built up by six centuries of patient toil and devoted patriotism must have collapsed ; the barbarians prowling round the frontiers would have burst in, and the era of Alaric and Attila would have been anticipated by four hundred years. Was there, then, no popular party at Eome, you will ask — was there no humbler class there, as in other countries, bestridden by an aristocracy — a class which suffers from bad government, and bears TIBERIUS. 89 it with impatience ? There was ; and its struggles to pull down the oligarchy convulsed Rome during the last century of the Republic. But oligarchies die hard. While the people is moved by sentiment, by belief in abstract principles, by gusts of passion, a priviledged class keeps one end steadily in view the preservation of its privileges. It acts together like one man. Its aims are narrow, but they are definite and precise. There is no waste of force. Each man is closely and permanently interested in maintaining the position. The instinct of self- preservation is a low one; but there is none which calls forth such concentrated and sustained energy. It is thus that we must explain the protracted resistance of the Roman nobility to a democracy apparently so superior in all the elements of political force, and (let me observe in passing) possessed of manhood suflfrage and vote by ballot. When corrup- tion and trickery would not avail, these noblemen were always ready to resort to violence. Sometimes the popular leaders were secretly assassinated. Some- times they were openly lynched. Sometimes martial law was declared, and the Tiber ran thick with corpses. When all other means of resistance were exhausted, Italy was plunged into civil war. A great general with a veteran army, after a frightftd slaughter among the democratic party, re-established the Senatorial Government for the last time: But 90 TIBERIUS, a greater than Sulla was growing up to manhood. In Julius Ca3sar the oppressed people at length found their champion. They had learnt, by a long and painfal experience, that the so-called Republican Government was a sham ; that its venerable machinery of popular assemblies and elective magistracies, how- ever it might have worked in small communities, such as the free cities of Greece, or as Rome herself had been in earlier times, was totally unadapted to her present position as the capital of a vast empire. The old Kepublican constitution, so far from being a security for liberty, was merely a convenient instru- ment for aristocratic misrule. The people carried Julius Caesar to power, in order that he might crush privilege and establish something like equality. That was the leading idea of the Imperial system as carried out by Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius, its three great founders. They were, in fact, tribunes and champions of the people against the nobility, and of the provinces against Rome. Only, instead of relying upon oratory, and agitation, and street demon- strations, and monster meetings, they carried a sharp sword. So, at length, the aristocracy was tamed. ^ 1 •* Cette premiere phase de la dicta ture fut dignement install^e par deux types eminents, qui meritent d'etre personnellement signal^s. Sage heritier du genereux Cesar, Auguste sut noblement surmonter les impulsions resultees de ses longues luttes, et gouvema TOccident avec r \ TIBERIUS. 91 I am going to treat the character of Tiberius biographically, and I will tell you at once why I do so. When a man has died at the age of seventy- eight years, having passed his whole life as a public man in situations of the highest responsibility, surely it is but fair to judge his career as a whole, and to interpret one part of it by another. Tiberius was fifty-six years old when he became emperor. I would put it to you — have you in your own ex- perience found that men come out in an entirely new character after fifty-six? Should you not be sur- prised if a friend of yours who had lived to old age as a brave, hard-working, just man, remarkable beyond others for soberness, temperance, and chastity in the midst of a dissolute society — I say, would it not take a great deal to persuade you that such a man, when his hair was grey, and the fire of youth was abated, would break out into the most abandoned and shameless licentiousness ? If you saw it with your eyes, would you not think you were dreaming ? How then would you receive such a tale if it came to you, not only loaded with the grossest contra- dictions and inconsistencies, but vouched for by the une sollicitude sociocratique, oii toutes les classes devaient coucourir au bien public suivant leurs aptitudes respectives. Ce caractere general fut energiquement developp^ par Tibere, qui, malgr^ les turpitudes privees de ses demieres ann^es, efFacera bientot, d'apres Tensemble de 868 qualites, intellectuelles et morales, une fietrissure ^man^e des rancunes aristocratiques." — Comte, Politique Positive, iii. 394. 92 TIBERIUS, authority of an informant who had no personal knowledge of the facts, but had evidently swallowed, with too willing credulity, the scandals whispered by the personal enemies of the accused man ? Now I undertake to show you that the case of Tiberius is very much what I have supposed. It is to your common sense that I shall appeal. You may not all of you be competent to decide complicated or obscure problems of history, because you have not been familiar with them. But you are familiar with human character, the laws of which are of universal application, and are just the same in Bradford to-day as they were in Eome nineteen centuries ago. Tiberius was four years old when his mother Liyia married the fature emperor. He was eleven when the battle of Actium made his stepfather sole master of the Eoman world. Augustus was then still in the prime of life, but as the eight years of his union with Livia had proved unfruitful, he seems to have resigned himself to the prospect of having no male offspring, and had therefore married JuUa, his daughter by a former wife, to his nephew Marcellus, whom he destined to be his successor. Marcellus, however, died young, and Julia was then married to the warrior and statesman Agrippa, to whom more than any one else Augustus owed his throne. Agrippa was thus marked out as the fature emperor. He TIBERIUS. 93 was, it is true, as old as Augustus himself. But the health of Augustus at this time seemed failing. By her elderly husband Julia had several children. Tiberius at this time, though enjoying considerable distinction as the stepson of the emperor, was not supposed to have any claim to the succession, which would fall naturally to Agrippa and his children, the emperor's grandsons. He was a good deal absent from Eome on military service in Spain, in the Tyrol, and in Asia. He is described by Suetonius as being tall and well built, witli a handsome face and great bodily strength, a description which is borne out by statues and busts still remaining. He was a grave, flUent man, and when lie walked always carried Ms head stiffly as if he was on drill. He was strongly attached to the old Eoman manners, and it is men- tioned that though perfectly acquainted with the Greek language, he particularly objected to the use of Greek phrases in conversation, which was then fashionable. Contrary to all expectation, Agrippa died, at the age of fifty-one, and Julia was again left a widow with her young family. She was still only twenty- eight years old, though she had buried two husbands. Augustus doted on his little grandsons Caius and Lucius, but he was well aware that it was impossible to bequeath his sceptre to a boy. He therefore turned his eye on Tiberius, whom he required to 94 TIBERIUS. divorce his wife Vipsania and marry Julia, and so become a father to the lads. This was one of the worst acts of Augustus's reign. Tiberius was ten- derly attached to Vipsania, by whom he had a son. To Julia he had an especial dislike. Her light character was the talk of Eome. Every one knew it but her father. During the lifetime of the elderly husband whom she had just buried, she had cast Wanton eyes on the handsome young Tiberius, who, as might be expected from the austerity of his character, had rejected her advances with disgust. This lady he was now obliged to marry.^ Yipsania was of humble birth, and perhaps did not shine at court. But the atmosphere of a court never suited Tiberius. To him it had been happiness to do his duty as a soldier in the summer, and return in the winter to the quiet of domestic life. All this was now at an end. His happiness was blighted. A dark cloud passed over his life and rested on it. Instead of the quiet gentle Vipsania, he saw presi- ding over his house the fastest lady in Eome, still young and beautiful, but with less than half a repu- tation. Tiberius had always been a grave man. From that day we may well believe he became a I Vipsania was the daughter of Agrippa, and so the stepdaughter of Julia. The new marriage, therefore, if not absolutely incestuous, had something revolting about it, Julia being the stepmother-in-law of Tiberius. TIBERIUS. 95 melancholy man ; the most melancholy of men, says Pliny — ti'istissumts honmium. Once, and only once again, did he see his lost Vipsania. It was by chance they met, and he gazed after her, says the historian, with such strained and bursting eyes {adeo contenUs et tumentibus oculis) that good care was taken he should never see her again. A war in Dalmatia and Croatia afforded him an excuse for leaving his new wife immediately after their marriage. During two years of a difl&cult struggle against the stubborn barbarians of that wild country, he exhibited, says Mr. Merivale, " admirable activity and skill, and might already be esteemed the most consummate captain of his day/' While he was thus occupied news reached him of the dangerous illness of his younger brother Drusus, who was fighting the Germans in Westphalia. He immediately set off, travelled night and day, rode through the barbarous district lately traversed by the contending armies with no attendant but his guide, and arrived at the camp a few hours before his brother's death. He brought the corpse tp Eome, walking before it the whole way from the Ehine to the Tiber, over Alps and Apennines, in the depth of winter. This grave, silent man was not, it seems, without deep feelings, which he manifested in his own way. I do not myself consider that pedestrianism implies the possession of every virtue. But in these 96 TIBERIUS. days, when a long walk is thought by many people to be a testimony to character which should out- weigh depositions on oath, the report of a Eoyal Commission, and even the confessions of a criminal himself, perhaps this winter walk of Tiberius from Mayence to Rome may dispose some at least, I do not say to " take him on trust, '^ but to listen with patience and impartiality to an examination of the foul charges which are brought against him.^ During the greater part of the next three years Tiberius was at the head of the army of the Rhine, which had been commanded by his deceased brother. He experienced no reverses, but, on the other hand, he did not make much progress towards the conquest of Germany. It is probable that the resources of GFaul, from which the war had to be supported, were exhausted, and that Augustus did not ftimish him with adequate means. The fact is, that his position was becoming most unsatisfactory. When he had been compelled to divorce Vipsania and marry Julia, that cruel act had been justified by reasons of state. The welfare of the vast empire demanded that the successor of Augustus should be, not a child, but a mature man. Although no express nomination had 1 Shortly before this lecture was delivered, the Rev. Charles Kingsley had insisted that the author of the Jamaica atrocities should be " taken on trust " because he had walked across Australia. TIBERIUS. 97 been or indeed could be made, the meaning of the arrangement had been unmistakable. But the health of Augustus, which had been very weak in early- life, became stronger as he approached old age. He outlived his ailments, and in the latter part of his long reign enjoyed excellent health. Thus it hap- pened that the two lads, Caius and Lucius, grew up to manhood before the throne was vacant ; and it was now becoming evident that Augustus was drawing baclj: from the understanding with Tiberius, who, after filling the place of heir-apparent, was to subside into a private citizen. That Tiberius should not feel the injustice most keenly was impossible. Five years had elapsed since his home had been broken up because it was so necessary that he should suc- ceed Augustus. Since then he had not known what it was to have a home. He had been engaged almost incessantly in fighting the battles of his country against the rugged barbarians of the Danube and the Ehine, faithfully discharging the laborious duties of the station to which he had been called. If his private happiness had been crushed, at least he could throw himself heart and soul into the business of the state. Ajid now the bitter reality dawned upon him. His long services, his glorious achievements, nay, his great sorrow, were to be lightly passed over ; and a pet grandson of the emperor, an inexperienced and presumptuous lad, was to take precedence of him. 7 98 TIBERIUS, This intention indeed was not openly expressed, for Augustus never assumed the right of naming a suc- cessor. But it was plain that he meant to place the young Agrippa on the steps of the throne, and to keep him before the eyes of the people, while Tiberius was banished to distant provinces and the drudgery of frontier warfare. When, upon his return from Germany, he was required to set off for Armenia, his patience at last gave way. He determined to leave Augustus to manage the empire as best he could with the help of his young grandsons. For himself, he announced his intention of retiring from public life and living as a private citizen at Rhodes. He selec- ted Ehodes for his residence partly to make it plain that he did not intend to enter on any rivalry with the young men, partly to avoid his wife, from whom he had hitherto sought refuge in the camp. Augus- tus, astonished and disconcerted, endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose, and complained bitterly in the senate that he should thus be deserted in his old age. Livia also joined her entreaties, but Tiberius was immovable. When forbidden to leave Kome, he resolved to put an end to his life; and had already gone four days without food, when the permission he had demanded was at length accorded to him. He was accompanied to the place of embarkation by those who loved or respected him. But not a word did he utter, from fear probably of compromising them; TIBERIUS. 99 and silently kissing some of those who had thus testified their regard, he turned his back on Italy. In Ehodes he remained seven years, living in the simplest manner, in a small house, cultivating the acquaintance of the citizens, and finding his chief amusement in attending lectures in the university. A few anecdotes are preserved of this period of his life, one of which, being characteristic, may be mentioned. He was in the habit all through life of writing down every evening what he intended to do next day. On one occasion, while at Rhodes, he had thus put down that on the morrow he would visit all the sick in the city, intending, we must suppose, to take some days about it. His attendants misunderstanding the entry in his agenda^ or desir- ing to save him trouble, had all the sick persons carried into the market-place; and when he went out next morning, he found them lying there classi- fied neatly according to their diseases. He was greatly shocked, and stood for some moments in considerable embarrassment; but at length went round and begged the pardon of each patient separately — even the humblest and most unknown, says Suetonius. In this manner five years passed away. Tiberius considered that he had made his intentions sufficiently plain. On the one hand, he would no longer be made to occupy a false position; and on the other, he deolined all rivabry with the young Caius, who 7—2 loo TIBERIUS. was now consul, and beyond dispute heir-apparent. He thought, therefore, that the time was come when he might return to Rome, and live in quiet as a private citizen, without danger of being misunder- stood. The other reason for his retirement to Ehodes had also become inoperative. Julia was no longer at Eome. Her scandalous life had at last come to the ears of her father, and he had banished her. Tiberius, therefore, intimated to the emperor that he desired to see his family again. But Augustus, either mistrusting his intentions or enraged at his retirement, returned him the freezing answer that, as he had thought proper to leave his family, he need not trouble himself any more about it. During the next two years the fate of Tiberius trembled in the balance. Although he had so pointedly declined all rivalry with the sons of Agrippa, they could not but look on him with jealousy. The young Caius had come into the East as viceroy, and did not conceal his ill-will. His <50urtiers were encouraged to scoff at the exile of Ehodes, and one of them even offered to go and fetch his head, if Caius would only say the word. There was one influential person, however, to whom Tiberius was still dear. This was his mother, the empress. Trembling for her son's life, she implored her husband to consent to his return, and at length succeeded in obtaining it. For two or three TIBERIUS. 10 1 years after this we hear nothing of Tiberius, except that he lived at Eome as a private citizen. Then once more his fortune changed. The two young Caesars died, the one in Asia, the other in Spain; and Augustus, for the fourth time in his long reign, was obliged to look about him for a successor.^ His first choice had been his nephew Marcellus, then his old friend Agrippa, then Tiberius, then the two young Caesars. But he had buried one after another, and now there was nothing for it but to turn once more to the ill-used Tiberius. There was indeed another young grandson ; but his low intellect and depraved tastes put him out of the question. There was also a son of Drusus, a promising youth, better know as Gfermanicus. But he was at this time only nineteen years old. Tiberius, therefore, was summoned from his retirement, and formally 1 The malicious gossip of Home accused Livia and Tiberius of poisoning them; and Tacitus, with his " mors fato propera vel novercse Livise dolus,*' has more than half branded them with the crime. Suetonius, Florus, and even the credulous Dion, observe a more can- did silence, and Pliny enumerates among the misfortunes of Augu^tu^, *' incusatsB liberorum mortes.*' That Caius died of wounds received in Armenia is proved by the testimony of Velleius, who was with him, and by an inscription still existing. The calumny would not be worth noticing here, but that it shows what stuff Tacitus was ready to use. The character of Livia does not fall within the scope of the present paper. Let Tacitus and the servum pecus of modem writers say what they will of her, every clear-judging student will recognise in her one of the noblest types of the Roman matron. I02 TIBERIUS. adopted by the emperor. An adopted sou among the Romans, as among the Hindoos, stood in all respects in the same position as a son by blood. He took his new father's name, and the family was supposed to be continued just as truly and reaUy as though male oflGspring had not failed. Henceforward Tiberius was the son and heir of Augustus, and his name was Tiberius Ceesar. Augustus could not name him as his successor, for the position he held was not yet supposed to be hereditary, and public opinion would have been outraged by treating it as such. But he went as near it as he could by adding the words, " This I do for the sake of the state." Tiberius, who had only one son, named Drusus, was at the same time required to adopt Germanicus. Thus Augustus, as it were, entailed the empire first on Tiberius, and after him on Germanicus and Drusus, or the survivor of them ; and every man in Eome, from the highest to the lowest, knew that no further change could now be made. If Tiberius had been young or incapable, it would not have been so certain, for some great noble- man would have made a bold push to wrest the sceptre from his hand. But his mature age (he was now six-and-forty), his high character, his military glory, made him beyond comparison the fittest man then living to rule the Roman world, and during the ten years that were yet to elapse before the throne be- came vacant, his superiority was to be still more TIBERIUS, 103 strikingly displayed. The heir to that throne could not waste the prime of life in useless idleness, and an un- ceasing round of even harmless amusement. He was expected to work for his place betimes, to relieve the sovereign of the toils of frontier warfare, to inspect the most distant provinces of the empire — ^in short, to lead a life of incessant activity, and so justify his daim to be advanced over the heads of his fellow- men. Immediately after his adoption, Tiberius resumed his old post as general of the armies of the state. Vast as the empire was, there was still one conquest which was necessary, not merely to its glory, but to its security. As long as Germany re- mained unsubdued, the civilised world was in per- petual danger. It was not so much that the Teutonic barbarians were a formidable foe, for their numbers are evidently exaggerated, and in fair fight they were no match for the Romans. A glance at the map will show why the conquest was so necessary. If they were to remain unsubdued, the frontier must lie along the Rhine and the Danube, a length of 2,600 miles. Now Europe outside of Russia is in fact a peninsula, of which Poland is the isthmus ; and if Germany had been conquered, the frontier would have lain across that isthmus, along the line of the Dniester and the Vistula, a length of only 800 miles, from the Black Sea to the Baltic. To conquer Ger- many was, therefore, a vital necessity worth any I04 TIBERIUS. expenditure of blood and treasure. We all know that it was not eflfected. On the one hand, the Ger- mans lost the inestimable benefit of incorporation with Rome ; and on the other hand, the time came when Rome was unable to defend a frontier of 2,500 miles. The barbarians burst in, and the spontaneous and inevitable change to Feudalism, which would other- wise have taken place without much breach of con- tinuity or any serious waste of the social and material constructions of Humanity, was turned into a scene of needless disorder and uncompensated destruction. This danger was very evident to the early emperors, and therefore it was that such efforts were made to conquer Germany. They failed because Germany was so barbarous. Julius Csesar had thoroughly con- quered Gaul in eight campaigns, because Gaul was a comparatively rich and civilised country, with towns, roads, bridges, agriculture and commerce. But the Germans of the time of Tiberius were still nomads and little better than savages. Savages may be gradually conquered or exterminated by colonists, but you can- not keep armies in a country where there are no towns, and little or no agriculture. This was why the Romans failed to conquer Germany. It was to this great task that Tiberius now returned. He was at home in the camp. There alone was any trace now to be found of the antique virtue, the discipline, the serious activity which had once been TIBERIUS. 105 the distinguishing characteristics of Roman life, and to which old-fashioned type Tiberius always remained faithful. In Rome very likely he was no favourite, where his stiff bearing and austere morality were a perpetual protest against frivolity and dissipation. But his soldiers understood him better. Probably, like William IIL, he was more genial in the camp than in the capital. His reception by the army of the Bhine^ on his return after ten years' absence, as described by an eye-witness, reminds one of Napo- leon's return from Elba, or the arrival of Nelson in the British fleet on the eve of Trafalgar. The vete- rans wept for joy. They pressed round him to grasp his hand. ^^ Do our eyes see you once more, general ? " '^ Have we got you back safe amongst us ? " "I served under you in Armenia, general." "Do you remember me in the Tyrol ? " *' Tou decorated me in the Bavarian campaign, general," or " in Hun- gary or in Germany."* Such is the scene as de- scribed by an eye-witness, the historian Yelleius, with a freedom and heartiness of style yery unusual in a classical writer.^ 1 " Videmus te imperator ! Salvum recepimus ! ac deindie : ego tecum imperator in Armenia, ego in Rhsetia fui, ego a te in Vinde- Ucis, ego in Pannonia, ego in Germania donatus sum ! " — ^VeUeius, ii. 104. ' Of all the readers of this paper who will pooh-pooh Velleius as a notorious toady of Tiberius, how many can honestly say that they ever read a chapter of his book ? Our wretched classical education does io6 TIBERIUS. In three campaigns Tiberius carried the Roman arms over all the country between the Ehine and the Elbe. Like all great generals, he was indefatigable in attending to the comfort of his troops and the formation of magazines, and thus he was enabled to continue operations far into the winter. Although this is not an occasion for entering into military details, I should not be doing justice to Tiberius if I did not bring particularly under your notice the third compaign, which, in its conception and execu- tion, was worthy of the greatest of modern generals, and, indeed, belongs to an entirely diflferent walk of art from the comparatively rude combinations of the generals of the Republic. A division of the army with the stores, military engines, and heavy baggage not even introduce its victims to more than a small fraction of the scanty, but precious, remains of ancient history. How do they know that Velleius is a toady ? Because they are told so by the literary men, who can just see that either he or Tacitus must be utterly wrong about Tiberius, and, of course, decide for the finest writer. Velleius was not a depraved, spiteful aristocrat of the capital ; he was a dis- tinguished soldier, who had served all over the world, and understood;what virtuz meant, in the old Koman sense of the word. I have never heard Napier called a toady because he speaks with enthusiasm of his old commander. Velleius had as much to s^ain by flattering Tiberius as Napier by flattering Wellington, and no more And it is on this pre- text, forsooth, that the only witness who speaks of these times &om his own knowledge is to be put out of court ! The work of Velleius was clearly not undertaken with the primary object of pleasing contempo- raries, for it deals with the whole history of Borne, and only a small por- tion of it is devoted to the events of his own time. It is worthy of remark that, like Tacitus, he sees the times earlier than his own recollec- tion through the delusive mist of pseudo-republican sentimentalism. TIBERIUS. 107 was embarked on a flotilla, which sailed to the mouth of the Elbe, and by that hitherto unexplored avenue penetrated to the interior of the country. Tiberius himself, at the head of the grand army, marched by Paderbom and Brunswick to meet the corps so detached, and the junction was effected with admir- able precision at a given point. Thus the Roman army was placed at once in the heart of Germany, with all appliances for a campaign, and its subsistence assured. There a great battle was fought and won ; and, although the army was marched back to Pader- bom on the approach of winter, it is evident, from subsequent operations, that resistance in North Ger- many between the Rhine and the Elbe was at an end. In the following year Tiberius planned a cam- paign of even greater magnitude, and with combina- tions still more audacious. This was nothing less than an invasion of Bohemia, where, encircled by mountains, lay the strength of the South Germans. For this purpose he proposed to place himself at the head of the army of Pannonia (a province correspond- ing to Southern Austria, Croatia, and Western Hun- gary), and to cross the Danube near Vienna, while one of his lieutenants led the army of the Rhine through the Black Forest by the route so well known since to French armies. A junction was to be effected. in Bohemia. The execution of this grand plan, the vastest operation ever contemplated by a Roman general, io8 TIBERIUS, had already commenced. Both armies were converging on Bohemia, when the whole of Pannonia and Dalmatia burst into a blaze of insurrection in the rear of Tibe- rius. He had conquered this country himself seven- teen years before, and he believed it to be so thoroughly subdued that he had ventured to make it the base of his operations against Bohemia. But when the warlike Pannonians saw the Roman legions cross the Danube and plunge into Central Germany, the temptation ms too great for them, and they conceived the hope, not only of cutting off Tiberius, but of invading Italy, for they were well aware that there was not a soldier between them and Rome. The insurrection spread. Dalmatia and lUyria took fire. The cri,l .a. one of .wf„l yj^.^ aays Suetonius, as Rome had not known since the days of Hannibal. Augustus hastily levied troops, and even filled their ranks from the slave population, telling the Senate that the Pannonians might be before the walls of Rome in ten days. As for Tiberius his posi- tion was like that of Napoleon at Moscow. Just as a splendid success seemed within his grasp he found himself obliged to fight for his own safety and that of Italy. And now his consummate generalship shone forth. He drew his army back across the Danube without loss, and set himself to commence afresh the conquest of the revolted districts. For three years did the stubborn contest continue, first in Pannonia, TIBERIUS. 109 afterwards in Dalmatia. The liistoriau Velleius, who served through these campiiigus, speaks with profes- sional enthusiasm of the skill with which Tiberius handled his troops, the care he took i'or their comfort, and the fibae example he set of energy and endurance. Eoman generals, in these times, had got into the lazy- habit of being carried in litters. But Tiberius invari- ably made his marches on horseback at the head of his troops. The general's litter was appropriated to the use of sick or wounded oflB.cers. '^ I myself," says Velleius, *^ and many others, had the advantage of it." It is related, as another instance of his preference for the antique simplicity of manners, that, like Cato of Utica, he always sat at his dinner instead of reclining, according to the luxurious fashion intro- duced from Greece. I mention these little traits because they come from an eye-witness, and are characteristic of the man. His whole life was a protest against what he regarded as the degeneracy :: of his age from the serious disposition, the stiff dis- ^ ' cipline, and the simple habits of ancient Home. Hardly had the Pannonian and Dalmatian war been brought to a prosperous conclusion, when news arrived of a terrible disaster in North Germany. Varus, whom Augustus had appointed governor of the newly- conquered province between the Rhine and the Elbe, was unfortunately a very unfit man for his post. He was more of a lawyer than a general. fio TIBERIUS, and was chiefly bent on filling his pockets. The task before him was not an arduous one ; but it demanded honesty, diligence, and, above all things, tact. The North Germans had been thoroughly beaten, and had no thought of renewing the struggle. Roman mer- chants were penetrating the country, and the natiyes, like all other Europeans, were taking kindly to Roman manners, and enlisting freely in the Roman armies. Yarns spoilt all. He vexed the half-tamed savages with his pettifogging exactions, while by his neglect of all military precautions he tempted them to insurrection. A young chieftain, called Arminius, who had been admitted to Roman citizenship, and had served in the Roman army — the Nana Sahib of his day — decoyed Varus to his ruin. But few escaped to the Rhine to tell the tale. The prisoners were put to death with torture. Thus was destroyed an army (says Yelleius, who had formerly served in it) which for valour, discipline, and experience was the finest Rome then possessed. It was a loss that could not soon be replaced, for it took a training of many years to make a perfect Roman soldier. But the loss of the new province was a more irreparable blow. It was like our own disaster in Affghanistan. Yengeance might be taken ; the stain on military honour might be wiped out ; but re-occupation had to be indefinitely postponed. Fortunately, Tiberius could now leave Pannonia TIBERIUS. 1 1 1 and place himself on the scene of danger. Anxious above all things that the Roman prestige might be re-established, he again led an army into Germany. It is recorded, as marking the gravity of the occasion, that he who in all his other wars had been accus- tomed to keep his plans locked in his bosom, and to rely solely upon himself, now discussed them freely with his officers. He seems to have attributed the late disaster to the luxurious habits which had crept into the camp. For we read that when his army was about to cross the Ehine into Germany he posted himself on the bridge, and in person examined all the baggage to see that the limits prescribed by his regulations were not exceeded. Arrived in the enemy's country, he himself set the example of en- durance and simplicity. He took his meals sitting on the bare ground. Though now in his fifty-third year, he gave up his tent and slept in the open air. Every night before he lay down to rest he issued his orders for next day to aU his officers in writing. Any officer who did not understand them was en- joined to come to the general himself for explana- tion at any hour of the night. The expedition was successful. That is to say, the Germans were beaten wherever they showed themselves. But when the summer was come to an end the Roman army was led back across the Rhine, which river, and not the Elbe, was henceforth the frontier of the empire. As 112 TIBERIUS. for the Germans, they relapsed into that barbarism of which their country and ours still exhibit many ill effects. With this campaign the long and brilliant career of Tiberius as a soldier closes. Like Wellington, whom as a general he much resembles, he had never experienced a defeat. His officer Velleius records with gratitude that he was careful of his soldiers' lives, and never allowed his judgment to be influenced either by the criminal desire of gathering glory for himself or by the clamours and criticisms of the camp, because (says Velleius) he cared less for what the world would say than for the approval of his own conscience.^ Such was Tiberius as a general, and not otherwise did he cany Hmself a^ a statesman. Soon after this Augustus died. Up to this time calumny itself has nothing to say against Tiberius. Few men have lived to the age of fifty-six in the full blaze of a public career, and in the possession of absolute power (for a Roman general in the pro- vinces was absolute), with so little to regret and so much to remember with honourable pride. At this point commences the narrative of Tacitus, and we 1 *' Utilia speciosis prseferens, quodque semper earn facientem vidi in omnibus bellis, quae probanda essent, non qum ntique probarentor seqnens." — (ii 113.) " Ante conscientiss quam famss consultum." — (ii 115.) TIBERIUS, 113 have henceforth to deal with a tissue of systematic de- traction, sly insinuation, and open invective unparal- leled in political biography. Ninety-nine educated men out of a hundred know nothing of Tiberius but what Tacitus is pleased to tell them. His previ- ous life is a sealed book. But you who have heard what it was, and have already a clear idea of the cha- racter of the vnan^ you I hope will hold fast by your common sense in judging the character of the emperor. 8 / Part II.^ *^An exemplary life and a reputation that stood deservedly high," — such is the verdict pronounced by Tacitus himself on the first fifty-six years of Tiberius. That in new circumstances and advancing age a man who had earned such a character might to some extent deteriorate is possible and credible. The mildest temper may be soured by calumny and misfortune. The firmest courage may be shaken by a continual sense of insecurity. An honourable dis- position may be grievously perverted by sophisms. But all this within limits. The really great criminals of history have been made of other stuff, and have not deceived the penetration of their contemporaries during half a century. Nor were the circumstances in which Tiberius now found himself so very unlike those which he had already proved. Misfortune had 1 Considerable additions have been made to this part since it was delivered as a lecture. TIBERIUS. 1x5 beaten on him from his cradle. If as emperor he was haunted by the spectre of assassination, as a subject he had known what it was to live for months in constant expectation of the death-warrant. He had tasted the bitterness of death itself in those four days that preceded his retirement to Ehodes — Taenarias etiam fauces, alta ostia Diiis logressus, Manesque adiit Begemque tremendum. On the other hand, an arbitrary, tyrannical or sangui- nary temper could not but have blazed ont during the many years when he had wielded the absolute, irresponsible, and often frightfully abused power of a Eoman general in his province. Here is the moral problem we are called on to solve. It is easy, if one is dull, to say that such a life exhibits many virtues and many vices. ^ It is tempting, if one is brilliant, to dispose of it in a cascade of epigrams.^ This is to restate the problem, not to solve it. Literary men are never disturbed by difficulties and improba- bilities so long as their periods are neatly rounded. 1 Tifitpiof nkeiarag yAv dperas jrX^iaTas de KOKias cxoi>v. — Dion Iviii. 28. ' " Egregimn vita famaque quoad privatus vel in imperils sub Augusto iiiit : obcultum ac subdolum fingendis virtutibus donee Germanicus ac Drosus superfuere : idem inter bona malaque mixtus incolumi matre : intestabilid ssBvitia sed obtectis libidinibus dum Sejanum dilexit timuitye : postremo in scelera simul ac dedecora prorupit, postquam remote pudore et metu, suo tan turn ingenio utebatur."— Tac. Ann. -vi. 61. 8—2 ii6 TIBERIUS. A moral contradiction has even a relish for them, as affording material for pungent antithesis. But we who simply want to find out how the facts really stand, shall instinctively distrust these sensational pictures. If we can see our way to a probable and consistent theory we shall be satisfied. If not, we will confess that all is darkness. But at any rate we will not go on repeating a tale that is an insult to plain common-sense. Tiberius had been invested with the tribunitian and proconsular powers during the lifetime of Augustus, and therefore during the last ten years he had been rather his associate in the empire than his heir- apparent. Independently of this advantage, there was no one who could for a moment be put in com- parison with him. Tacitus does indeed labour to produce the impression, by insinuation, rather than direct assertion, that the popular choice, had it been free, would have fallen on the young Germanicus. No doubt the gallant and showy qualities of this young man had made him a general favourite. As little doubt that the serious and ascetic manners of Tiberius, his shrinking from all idle display, his avowed preference for old Eoman sobriety and discipline, had made him disliked. But when rulers are to be chosen, a people — or rather, those who in such junctures sway the judgment of the people — ^will not forget the more solid qualifications for TIBERIUS. 117 government. And it happens that Tiberius did not assume the full powers of Augustus at once, as he might have done, but waited until they were urged upon him by the Senate, His conduct on this occasion (so hard are some people to be pleased) has been generally set down as hypocrisy. The oppor- tunity is convenient for saying a few words as to his mental peculiarities. He was not a man of thoroughly great and noble mind, like Julius, or Cromwell, or Danton. He had not that self-con- fidence, that sense of superiority, that noble careless- ness of spirit which cannot be troubled by slander and detraction. He was tormented by a perpetual suspicion that he was disliked and underrated by his fellow-citizens. And yet, on the other hand, he knew that he was an able man. He was conscious that he meant well ; and he was in a state of chronic indignation against his contemporaries because their afltections were evidently bestowed on less worthy objects. But he was not only a sensitive man: he was a proud man. His conscience told him that it was not a noble thing, or a right thing, this fretful- ness at popular injustice, this eavesdropping, as it were, to catch the whisper of vulgar criticism. So he laboured to persuade himself that he did not care for it. He started back whenever he found himself doing or saying a popular thing. He found comfort in being able to assure himself that whatever might ii8 TIBERIUS, be his inner weakness, he had never allowed his action to suffer' from it. It is recorded of him that a maxim frequently in his mouth was, Oderint dum probeni — ^let them dislike me, provided in their hearts they respect me. And even Tacitus drops the remark that he was ambitious for the approval of posterity rather than of his contemporaries. The words of Velleius, too, will be remembered, that " he cared more for the approval of his own conscience than for what the world might say of him." These writers, however, only half understood Tiberius. Tf . he had really been as indifferent to the opinion of others as they say he was, he would have been a greater and happier man. He is not the only man whom a morbid sensitiveness has driven to assume a cynical exterior.^ 1 The features of Tiberius are well known to us. The development of the upper part of the head is truly magnificent The eyes are, as Suetonius says, ** prsegrandes," but not prominent. The nose is slightly aquiline, and there is considerable dissimilarity between the two profiles. But what strikes the observer most is the lower part of the face, which betrays that deficiency in confidence and resolution which Tiberius was ever trying to correct. The mouth is small, and ahnost as beautiful as that of Augustus ; the dimpled chin literally -insignifi- cant. The face of the fine sitting statue in the Vatican has a very marked and, to my mind, pleasing expression. In the bust in the British Museum we see the same contrast between the upper and lower development, the same peculiar expression, sweet, here, almost to feebleness. But it is in the wonderful colossal head at Naples that we see the Tiberius of Gaprese. I cannot think that it represents him in youth. The upper part of course retains its noble proportions. But TIBERIUS, 119 Now when Tiberius showed a certain hesitation in accepting the part which the Senate pressed upon him, Tacitus is quite right in saying that he desired to discover what the principal citizens really thought of it. But the suggestion that he was laying a trap for them is as malevolent as it is unnecessary. Twenty years before, when he saw his own just claims slighted, and the young Agrippas put over his head, he did not stoop to any rivalry with them. He proudly flung up oflB.ce and retired to Ehodes, And after a long and careful study of his character, I have little doubt that if the Senate had shown any indisposition to trust him with supreme power he would have once more retired from public life. I will go further, and take upon me to say that any one who believes that in a.d. 14 a coiip-d'etat was possible, and that Tiberius, or any one else, could have stepped into the shoes of Augustus in defiance of public opinion, shows a profound ignorance of the political situation at that time. It is clear that no one dreamt of returning to the so-called republican constitution. The great nobles felt towards Augustus and Tiberius as an oligarchy always will feel towards one of its members who has overtopped the rest. The grievance was a personal the month and chin, originally insignificant, have lost flesh and fallen away. There remains a face wasted with misery, on which are written wrongs, disappointments, and chagrins. 120 TIBERIUS. one. Each, nobleman chafed at the precedence of the chief of the state because he coveted it for himself. The reigning family came of no royal stock. Their dignity was still green. Augustus and Tiberius were both, bom simple nobles. The English peerage submits without soreness to the solitary dignity of our present royal family. But if a revo- lution were to place Lord Eussell on the throne, we can understand how a Stanley or a Cavendish would feel towards him. That was how a Piso or .TRmilius felt towards Tiberius. What Tiberius had to dread was not any collective action on the part of either people or nobles. The people deliberately preferred imperial government. The nobles knew that it was inevitable. The real danger was of conspiracy among individual nobles, with a view not to overturning the throne, but changing its occupant. Julius had fallen under the daggers of such conspirators. The existence of murderous plots by nobles of the highest rank against Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius is beyond dispute. Tiberius, however, had no reason to apprehend that a single voice would be publicly raised at Rome against his accession, for there was not a single nobleman who could have found a party to support him. It was indeed possible that the army of the Rhine, which had mutinied for increase of pay and other concessions, might proclaim their general, Germanicus, emperor if he TIBERIUS. 121 promised to grant th(*ir demands. And it is very likely that the lower orders at Eome would have preferred the young prince to the old one. But there is not the smallest evidence that the nobility wished for Germanicus, and it is intrinsically improbable. If there was one thing of which they had a horror, it was military dictation, and they appear to have looked anxiously to Tiberius to quell the mutiny. As for Germanicus himself, he was well satistied with his position as adopted son of Tiberius, and could not fail to see how necessary it was that the family should stick together. The mutiny, therefore, was quelled, and Tiberius was firmly established on the throne.^ Although Tiberius disclaimed all responsibility for the execution of Agrippa Postumus — " the first crime of the new reign," as Tacitus calls it^ — it was done for his advantage, and whatever blame may attach to it he must bear. The story that Augustus ordered the officer who had charge of the young man to put him to death as soon as he should hear that the throne was vacant, is quite consistent with pro- 1 Genealogical Table. Augustus = Livl\. I I ^ n Agrippa =F Julia. Tiberius. Drusus (I.) r ^ 1 I I Agrippa Postumus. Agrippina. Drusus (II.) Germanicus=f=Agrippina. I ■- I ' 1 Tiberius Gemellus. Nero Drusus (III.) Caligula. 122 TIBERIUS. bability. We know that he regarded the existence of his grandson as a public and private calamity. The mysterious visit to Planasia of a bed-ridden old man without the knowledge of the wife who nursed him we may safely pronounce a ridiculous fiction. The remark of Tacitus that Augustus had never had the heart to put to death any of his family proves nothing at all. Moreover, that celebrated emperor, though of enlightened mind and sweet manners, had not such a thing as a heart about him. But from the peculiar language of Tiberius, it seems most pro- bable that the order was sent by Livia while her husband still breathed, and before the arrival of her son. A more important question is, how far it was justifiable. We must remember that an attempt to rescue Agrippa and place him at the head of an in- surrection was actually in progress, and only failed by a few hours. As it was, an impostor who per- sonated him caused some commotions. It is often prudent to deal mercifully with ordinary rebels. But no Government, whether republican, oligarchical, or monarchical, can or ought to pardon any one who advances claims purely dynastic. No one worth noticing would now-a-days contend that such claims have any validity against a de facto Government ; and if they have no validity, then to advance them is a heinous crime, for which death is the only appro- priate penalty. Even where there has been much to TIBERIUS. 123 excite our sympathy, as in the cases of Lady Jane Grey and the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, the public welfare clearly demanded that the pretender should be put out of the way. The young Agrippa had no title to rule except that he was the nearest male relative of the late chief of the state, in a country where hereditary succession had not been established, and in fact never was established. The historians are unanimous as to his character.^ In any modem European monarchy, so much have we improved on ancient models, this vicious brute would have been recognised as heir- apparent. But Augustus established another prece- dent for Eoraan Imperialism. When Agrippa pro- tested fiercely against the adoption of Tiberius, his grandfather disinherited and banished him, and afterwards, as he continued refractory, caused him to be condemned by a decree of the Senate to military custody for life Those who call his execution a crime had better say at once that Tiberius should have yielded the throne to him. It is worthy of remark that his sister Agrippina does not appear to have resented or regretted the removal of one who 1 ** Tmcem et ignominia adcensnm — rudem bonamm artium et robore corporis stolide ferocem." — ^Tacitus. "Ingeninm sordidum ac ferox — nihilo tractabiliorem immo indies amentiorem." — Suetonius. " Mira pravitate aninxi atque ingeni in praecipitia conversus — crescen- tibus indies vitiis." — ^Velleius. AovXoTTpcir^r. — ^Dion. 124 TIBERIUS. was no less formidable a rival to Germanicus than to Tiberius. The relations of Tiberius with Germanicus have been made by Tacitus the chief point of interest during the first five years of the reign. I believe the impression produced on most readers is that Germanicus was such a godlike young person, and his wife Agrippina such a model of a woman, that a melancholy old widower like Tiberius, who had no other claim to govern than a life spent in the service of the state, ought to have shuffled himself away somewhere, and made room for the brilliant young couple. A more perverse view could not be taken. Germanicus was, no doubt, a gallant and amiable man, and it is much to his credit that he seems to have harboured no treasonable or undutiful thought towards his adopted father. But as a general and administrator he was a mistake. It is easy to see, even firom the highly-coloured narrative of Tacitus, that his campaigns in Germany were disastrous failures. After the defeat of Varus, the wisest course would have been to wait a few years, and not resume the attempt to conquer the barbarians until they should have been partially civilised by contact with the empire. To harass them with firuitless and de- structive raids was only to plunge them deeper into barbarism and prevent commercial intercourse; and to come off second best in such work as Germanicus TIBERIUS. 125 generally did, was to destroy all respect for the Roman arms. Tiberius therefore actel wisely in re- calling him and sending him to the East, where he could do less mischief. There he died, and his death is attributed to Tiberius. As the crime was supposed to have been effected by enchantment and sorcery, perhaps I need say no more about it. The whole conduct of Tiberius towards Germanicus, as related by Tacitus himself, is absolutely faultless ; the comments and insinuations are unsupported by any facts, and are often demonstrably inconsistent with facts. They should, at least, warn the reader betimes of the animus of the author. One point is somewhat obscure. Why did Tiberius send Piso to Syria ? The Pisos were supposed to look with pecu- liar jealousy on the elevation of the Julian and Claudian houses. This Piso was a violent, haughty man scarcely concealing his disaffection, who, though he could not deny the noble birth of Tiberius, de- spised the Vipsanian and Pomponian puddle that ran in the veins of his son.^ He was therefore just the sort of man that Tiberius always avoided sending into the provinces. The suggestion that Piso was selected to be a thorn in the side of Germanicus is too absurd. It would be an instance of cutting off one^s nose to spite one's face if ever there was one, 1 Vix Tiberio concedere ; liberos ejus ut multum infra despectare. — Tac. Ann. 11. 43. 126 TIBERIUS, I would offer an hypothesis, which, whether true or not, at least explains the facts. Plancina, the wife of Piso, was, as we know, a special favourite of the empress-mother, whose wishes Tiberius never thwarted even when he fretted at them. What was more likely than that she insisted on a province for Piso ? Tiberius, fearing that Piso, once at the head of legions, would give trouble, sent Germanicus into the East, with extraordinary powers, to keep him in check. Tacitus himself drops the remark that Tiberius thought himself safer when the legions were in the hands of Germanicus and Drusus. On the death of Germanicus, Piso did actually raise a mutiny in Syria. The attitude of Tiberius to Piso on his trial was eminently dignified and just. He might have gained applause by crushing him on the ridicu- lous charge, of poisoning : he scorned to do so. But the crime of mutiny was clearly proved, and he would not overlook it. Let me endeavour now to give an idea of the main features of the reign of Tiberius. Julius Csesar had overthrown the aristocracy as the champion, first of the Roman commonalty, and secondly, of the subject provinces. His successors never forgot that these were the principles on which the throne rested- Vast as the empire was, equal citizenship, with some trifling exceptions, was still confined to the inhabi- tants of Italy, and did not embrace much more than TIBERIUS. 127 four million adult males. The rest of the Roman world was governed by those four millions, and stood to them in just the same relation as the nations of India do to you. Under the senatorial government they had been plundered and harassed with terrible uniformity. The establishment of the empire under Augustus had brought them some relief. To these poor provincials it was like stepping out of hell. But many abuses still remained. The Roman governors werfe generally of the noble class, and oppression and extortion were still common, though not on such a frightful scale as formerly. Those who attentively consider the reign of Tiberius will see that a great point, if not the central point, of his policy was the promotion of the interests of the pro- vincials. The ordinary reader does not notice these things till they are pointed out to him. For in- stance, when he reads that upon the destruction of twelve great cities in Asia by earthquake, Tiberius not only remitted the taxes for five years, but contributed large sums from his private fortune to help the inhabitants, he thinks it a proper but very natural measure. It does not occur to him that it was a novelty for a Roman to spend his money on the provinces ; that Cato or Cicero would have stood aghast at it, and that it was doubtless loudly con- demned by the citizens of Rome, rich and poor alike, who could not understand that provincials existed 128 TIBERIUS. for anything else than to pour their wealth into the metropolis. Again, in the days of the republic, governors of provinces used to be changed at least every three years. The nobles all wanted their turn of plunder. Tiberius made it a practice to retain a governor several years in his post. No doubt this innovation was bitterly resented in aristocratic circles; and Tacitus does, in fact, set it down as one of the de- linquencies of Tiberius, and gives malevolent explana- tions of it. But the provincial historian, Josephus, looks at it very differently, and tells us that Tiberius pursued this policy avowedly with the object of saving the provinces from the keen appetites of new governors. We find the cities of Asia voting a temple to Tiberius, because he had more than once brought to trial at Rome governors who had been guilty of oppression in the East. We find him refusing to drive a harder bargain with the farmers of taxes, who were thought to be making too good a thing of it, because, he said, they would put the screw on the tax-payers. There were certain provinces still administered by the Senate, and we find them im- ploring that they might be administered by the Emperor. Thus we can have no doubt that the reign of Tiberius, whatever it was in the metropolis (and to that I wUl come presently), was in all other TIBERIUS. 129 parts of the empire beneficent to an extent hitherto unknown. We get these few glimpses from Tacitus. It makes one indignant that when that writer might have left us the inestimable historical treasure of a complete picture of Imperial administration through- out the Eoman world, he should have preferred to fiU his pages with the grievances of the nobles, who sat grumbling and plotting at Rome. But what is the testimony of provincial writers? You have heard the remark I quoted from Josephus, More emphatic still is the testimony of Philo, another Jew, writing not during the life of Tiberius, when he might be suspected of flattery, but shortly after his death. He winds up a long description of the general prosperity and happiness under the late reign by declaring that " the Satumian age of the poets might no longer be regarded as a fiction, so nearly was it revived in the life of that blessed era."^ Tacitus envies the old historians who chronicled '^ discordias consulum adversum tribunes, agrarias jfrumentariasque leges, plebis et optimatium certa- mina.'^ Whether one in a hundred of his fellow- subjects would have cared to return to those fine old times is a question which does not seem to have oc- curred to him. History has always been written (except perhaps in the middle ages, when there was a church,) by the rich or their friends. Rulers who 1 Quoted at length by Mr. Merivale, r. 883. 9 I30 TIBERIUS. have displeased that class have suffered accor- dingly. But how would contemporary history look if recorded by an Irish peasant or a Spitalfields weaver ? Would he see it en heau ? While careful not to burden his subjects, Tiberius was eminently economical in his financial manage- ment. For instance, he cut down the expenditure on gladiatorial exhibitions, and abstained from en- couraging them by his presence. This is set down in the catalogue of his offences by Tacitus, and pro- bably there was not one of his measures which made him so unpopular in Rome. He made it a rule not to give donatives to the armies, a pernicious practice pursued by his predecessor and successors. Yet by punctual payment of their wages he kept them in discipline and obedience. In his own life he continued to set an example of simplicity. While the great nobles were squandering their vast revenues in vulgar ostentation and debauchery, the Emperor lived in the plainest way, with a small household. He economised his private fortune, but, as Tacitus admits, he did not covet that of any one else, and even if a legacy was left him he did not accept it unless he had been on intimate terms with the testator. But thought he abhorred wasting money on frivolity, he could be splendidly generous in the right place. His muni- ficence to provincial cities has already been mentioned. Twice in his reign, when large districts of Rome had TIBERIUS. 131 been destroyed by fire, he contributed enormous sums from his private fortune to repair the damage.^ But such munifience brought him no credit in the eyes of the nobility, who were discontented because they could not live upon the public revenue, as in the good old times of the republic. We hear of the grandson of the orator Hortensius, one of the richest nobles of the republic, coming to the Senate and complaining of his poverty, which had been caused by his own dissolute life. The Senate wish him to be relieved, but Tiberius reads him a stern lecture. Tacitus narrates this as an instance of his unfeeling character, and evidently thinks that the money wrung by tax- ation from the provinces could not be better spent than in pensions to needy noblemen. We have seen that as a general Tiberius had been indefatigable in attention to his duties. He carried this laborious industry from the camp to the palace. No slave in Rome worked harder than the Emperor. For several years he did not quit Rome, even during the sultry months of autumn, when every one who could afford it rushed to the hills or sea-side, but remained at his post toiling at state business, and 1 " ErogandsB per honesta peconisd cupiens ; quam virtutem diu retiiLuit quuin ceteras exueret" — Tac. Ann. i. 75. Tacitus never men- tions anything to the credit of Tiherius without carefully poisoning it. The " diu *' itself is a suggestio falsi ; the most splendid instance of the munificence of Tiberius belongs to the last few months of his life. 9—2 132 TIBERIUS. endeavouring to look after everything himself. In- deed, there is no doubt that he carried this too far, for a really great ruler shows his ability in nothing so much as in knowing how to make other people work for him. Tiberius could not employ the great nobles as his ministers. They were disaffected, and, besides; would have disdained any functions except the government of provinces. His son Drusus (II.) had commanded armies with credit, but seems to have preferred pleasure to business.^ There was nothing for it, therefore, but to look for a minister in a lower rank of society. Such as a minister was Sejanus, whose name, perhaps, is even more odious than that of hifl master. The charges made against him are, however, very vague, or when they are precise, they, for the most part, break down. They amount, in fact, to this, that being a middle-class man, he had the audacity to be prime minister, and that he was an enemy of the immaculate Agrippina. Agrippina was an ambitious woman, with a violent temper, and she 1 Never was son more unlike his father. Dmsus was not mechanty but he was passionate and domineering, and had an ominous delight in blood (of gladiators, for instance), which cannot be laid to the charge of his father. Tiberius saw these traits in his character, and was dis- turbed by them. '* You shall not," he said to him once in the presence of several persons, " you shall not break the laws or commit outrages while I am alive ; and if I find you attempting it, you shall not have the chance of doing so when I am dead and gone," — a significant threat from such a man, which might have more than one meaning. — ^Dion^ Ivii. 13. TIBERIUS. 133 made herself the centre of disaffection at Rome. She always treated Tiberius as the niiu-derer of her hus- band, and often abused him to his face, in the grossest manner.^ He bore her insolence very patiently, and so far from harbouring ill-will against her children, he treated them as his heirs after the death of his own son Drusus. It is remarkable that one of the most intimate friends of this paragon of propriety, Claudia Pulchra, was a woman of dissolute character, and that her children, whom she professed to educate so carefully, turned out abominably. The eldest son, Nero, was dissolute and seditious. The second, Drusus (III.), is admitted by Tacitus to have been thoroughly bad.^ The third was the notorious Cali- gula. All the daughters were stained with vice ; one of them, the younger Agrippina, being the most in- famous woman of her time. But the reason why that family shines so in the pages of Tacitus, while Tiberius and Sejanus are painted so black, is very simple. That younger Agrippina was a very clever woman, and she wrote memoirs which we know were ^ The fact is that Agrippina was an intolerable woman. Puring her life she bullied all her contemporaries, and she has bullied posterity ever since in the pages of Tacitus. No one can look at her statue in the Museum of the Capitol without being satisfied that Germanicus was henpecked. The one virtue she is recorded to have possessed is her " pudicitia impenetrabilis," surely not such a rare merit in a widow with nine children. ' " Atrox Drusi ingenium." — ^Ann. iv. 60. 134 TIBERIUS. in the hands of Tacitus, for he quotes them. These memoirs, no douht, were the main source of the foul stream of calumny which has deluged this reign. ^ In the twelfth year of his reign Tiberius left Rome, never to return. I believe that he had two reasons for doing so. He brooded indignantly over his own unpopularity. And just at this time he became aware that in the vile gossip of Rome he was accused of horrible licentiousness — ^he who during a long life had been endeavouring ; to set an example of stem mo- rality. The fact that these scandalous stories were circulating came out by chance during a trial at which he was present. He was violently excited. He sprang up and claimed to answer such charges on the spot, or to have them investigated by a judicial tribunal ; and it was with difficulty that his friends could calm him.^ I imagine that this incident filled ^ '' Id ego, a scriptoribus annalinm non traditum repperi in commen- tariis Agrippinse filias, quse Nerouis principis mater vitam suam et casus snorum posteris memoravit. — Ann. iv. 53. ' Tac. Ann. iv. 42. The behaviour of Tiberius on this occasion is eminently characteristic. His apparent cynical indifference to public opinion was entirely assumed. Conscious of Jbeing only too sensitive to critics, he tried to steel himself against it. All through life he mis- trusted his natural impulses in this as in other particulars, and drilled himself on a pattern which he considered more noble and manly. The in- cident at the trial of Votienus took him by surprise, and his elaborate calmness forsook him. But no doubt this momentary weakness (as he would think it) caused him more anguish than tlie calumnies of Votienus^ On a subsequent occasion we find him insisting with ostentatious indiffer- TIBERIUS. 135 up the measure of his disgust at his fellow-citizens, and decided him to leave their company for ever. His other reason was certainly the dread of conspiracies and assassination, for he chose the island of Capreee as his residence, because it had only two landing-places, which made police supervision more easy. The military force at his disposal in Italy was very small, and we know that he desired to be in a place from which he could escape by sea, and reach the army of the Bhine. It certainly is painful to see one who had been confronting danger all his life reduced to this state of anxiety when approaching the age of three- score and ten. But to be surrounded with secret plots, never to know when, how, or from whom you may expect the treacherous blow, will at last unnerve the firmest courage. Because Tiberius escaped such plots it is assumed that he was in no danger ; whereas it was probably his precautions which saved him. Soon after his departure from Rome, he caused Agrippina and her eldest son, Nero, to be arrested, The latter was eventually put to death. Agrippina died in prison two or three years afterwards. That they were bitterly hostile to Tiberius is admitted. How far they had proceeded in the path of treason it is impossible for us now to say, since we have not got Tiberius^s version of the facts. The persistent ence that similar filthy libels should be recited at length, " patientiam libertatis aUensB ostentans et contemptor suse infamisB," sa3rs Tacitus. 136 TIBERIUS, assumption of Tacitus that he had a spite against that family is suflSciently disproved b'y the fact that he had marked out Nero as his successor, and that he did actually make the third son, Caius, his heir, in pre- ference to his own grandson. He wished to put the young men through a course of training such as he had undergone himself, that they might be fit in time to rule the world. But the odds are heavy against Porphyrogeniti. They were already quarrelling for the throne which they had done nothing to earn. Nero was the idol of his mother. Drusus (HI.) was backed by Sejanus. Agrippina, who was burning to be empress-mother,^ was afraid that Sejanus would induce Tiberius to pass over Nero, and she was there- fore caballing and intriguing and courting the popu- lace, not, perhaps, with any definite design of rebel- ling against the Emperor — if he would only make haste and die — but certainly to overthrow the minister. Her offence, putting it at its lightest, was just that of Elizabeth's favourite, Essex, whose aim was to destroy his personal enemies, and force the queen to recognise James as her successor. Tacitus says that Nero was naturally unassuming, but that he was surrounded by men hungry for power, who persuaded him that both the army and the populace were only waiting for him to declare himself ; and he admits that under this bad influence the young man used disloyal language. 1 " iEqui impatiens, dominandi avida." — Tac. Ann. vL 25. TIBERIUS. 137 Plans of action were actually discussed, for some of the party urged Nero and Agrippina to go to the army of the Ehine, or to harangue the crowd in the Forum. Tacitus may say that these advisers were agents of Sejanus ; but that is because he has nothing else to say. Tiberius had tolerated the outrageous calumnies and insults of Agrippina for ten years with imper- turbable patience, knowing that female politicians had never been formidable at Rome. But as soon as there was a young man to deal with, the danger became real.* The arrest of Nero and Agrippina was generally attributed to Sejanus, and probably with truth, for Sejanus was now aiming at the throne.^ He had 1 The feelings of Tiberius were exactly those of Queen Elizabeth, whose severity to Catherine Grey (certainly not an Agrippina), and machinations against James (even when she meant him to be her successor), were prompted by her knowledge that to recognise an heir would be to sign her own death-warrant. " The like had never been demanded of any prince, to declare an heir-presumptive in his life- time ; she was not so foolish as to hang a winding-sheet before her eyes." — (Froude,vii. 373.) " There were some among them (a deputation of peers) who had placed their swords at her disposal when her sister was on the throne, and had invited her to seize the crown ; she knew but too well that if she allowed a successor to be named, there would be found men who would approach him or her with the same encourage- ment to disturb the peace of the realm." — viiL 315. ' It was in itself an honourable ambition, though in the eyes of the aristocracy unpardonable. The intrigue with Livilla during her hus- band's lile, and the murder of Drusus (II.), were probably inventions of his divorced wife, Apicata. (Compare Dion, Iviii. 11.) In his 138 TIBERIUS, married a niece of Tiberius, and thought his chance no worse than that of Tiberius himself had been under Augustus. But he was too impatient to wait for his master's death, and entered into a formidable conspiracy. The old man, however, was determined not to be robbed of life or sceptre by any one, for which I do not blame him; and he struck down Sejanus, as he had struck down Agrippina. It may perhaps be thought that I have been a long time coming to the main charge which has been brought against Tiberius — that of cruelty. I assure you I have no intention of shirking it. But as his accusers themselves can only level it at the last few years of his life, I do not know why it should occupy more than the last few minutes of this lecture. Tacitus, by constantly harping upon it, has managed to make it the most prominent feature of his character. In dealing with it I must ask you to remember that we have no contemporary historian to guide us, for Velleius appears to have died in the middle of the reign, and has left only some brief remarks on it, which, so far as they go, are very laudatory, while Josephus and Philo, living in the East, trouble them- selves little with what was going on at Kome, except so far as it affects the Jews. We depend on Tacitus hostility to Agrippina and Nero he was acting in self-defence and in the interest of his master, but his dealings with Drusus (III.) seem inex- cusable. TIBERIUS, T39 and Suetonius, who both lived many years afterwards, and drew their materials from the memoirs of Agrip- pina. If, therefore, I can show you from the pages of Tacitus himself that the charge of cruelty, on close examination, shrinks to very small dimensions, I think I have a right to protest against the injustice which will not allow such a life as I have described to weigh in the balance of credibility somewhat heavier than the improbable assertions of studied malevolence. For this purpose I wUl divide the reign into two parts. The first consists of the twelve years before Tiberius left Home, during which he was, according to Tacitus, more directly responsible for what was done than afterwards. Tacitus leaves on his reader the impression that both periods were reigns of terror, no man knowing when his turn would come to be devoured.^ Everything resembling a state trial is paraded and made the most of.* Now, how many ^ " Non enim Tiberius non adcusatores fatiscebant (seventh year of the reign). His tarn assidois tamque moestis modica lo^titia inteijicitur (tenth year). Nos sseva jussa continuas adcusationes fallaces amicitias pemiciem innocentium et easdem exita causas conjungimus, obvia rerum similitudine et satietate (eleventh year) ." ' That the list of trials given by Tacitus is complete (if not some- thing more), is not only fairly to be presumed from the spirit he shows but is distinctly stated by himself. " Neque sum ignarus a plerisque scrip- toribus omissa multorum pericula et poenas, dum copia fatiscunt, aut, quffi ipsis nimia et moesta fuerant ne pari tsedio lectures adficerent, verentur. Nobis pleraque digna cogaitu obvenere, quamquam ab aliis incelebrata."— Ann. vi. 7. I40 TIBERIUS. such cases do you suppose there were in those twelve years, on the showing of Tacitus himself? There were thirty-seyen in all. And what sort of cases were they ? An analysis of them will surprise you. Twdre were for offences against the Emperor or his family (of which six were stopped by Tiberius, or re- sulted in acquittal or pardon), six were for extortion or oppression ia the provinces, seven for adultery or poisoning, four for false accusation, three for com- plicity with foreign enemies, two for libel, one for murder, one for corrupt admiastration of justice, one for mutiny. And now, what was the fate of these defendants? Prepare to be astonished still more. Fourteen were banished, six committed suicide before sentence, two were expelled the Senate, of five flie prosecution was stopped by Tiberius in his capaeitT as tribune, three were acquitted, one was pardoned ; of five the punishment is not mentioned, but it was probably banishment ; and one, just one was executed.^ This man was tried and condemned 1 Be^iks these, there were executed, without [trial, the two state prisomezs left by Augustus — Agrippa Postumus and Sempronius the paranoor of Julia. A pseudo-Agrippa and one Curtisius who was headisg a slave insurrection, were taken in arms and put to death by mioruil law. A decree of the Senate banished all astrologers from Italy, azai two of them were put to death. Many of the persons whose cases £18 eimnerated above were charged witli several crimes, " majestas ** being ccie ; and it is generally, but very imwarrantably, assumed that all ib£Sc cLses are to be regarded as political trials. But it had always been die custom at Home for the accuser to dilate, not merely on the TIBERIUS. 141 by the Senate in the absence of Tiberius from Rome, and executed immediately. When Tiberius returned he blamed the haste of the Senate, praised one senator who had opposed it, and caused a decree to be made that in future ten days should intervene between sentence and execution. I think it must be admitted that the first twelve years, at all events, of this monster, were not only not cruel, but merciful to a degree which is unparalleled in any reign, ancient or modem. It is also worth noticing that the state offenders of Tiberius were not sent to penal servi- tude, but lived comfortably in their banishment, as we find from a provision that they should not take more than twenty slaves with them. The fact is that the state trials of Tiberius afford the clearest indica- tion of the basis on which his power rested. He crushed a lawless nobility, and dragged to justice offence which was the immediate cause of the prosecution, hut on every other charge, strong or weak, which there was the smallest pretext for urging. "Majestas/* which we shortly translate '* treason," had originally meant any act which damaged the state. A law of Satur- ninus had extended it to outrages on a trihime. Cicero interpreted it to include removing a public statue. So vague a charge was. therefore, naturally added as a count to every indictment of a public character ; but it does not follow that either accuser or judges laid serious stress on it. VHien Tacitus writes, "Ancharius Prisons Caesium Cordum proconsulem Cretse postulaverat repetundis, addito majestatis crimine quod tum omnium accusationum complementum erat," it is absurd to treat Cordus as a political offender. In " republican " times, indeed, he might have plundered Crete with impunity, and in that sense his Mends might fairly regard him as a victim of Imperialism. 142 TIBERIUS, governors who had been guilty of oppression and outrages in the provinces, and who found sympathy among their own class as similar criminals do now. But he was not "oerdonibus timendus." He had nothing to fear from the great mass of his fellow- citizens. Can the governments of modem Europe say as much ? In the remaining eleven years of the reign we cannot analyse the prosecutions with the same exact? ness, because part of the narrative of Tacitus is lost. If there was greater severity it was not uncalled for. Those who are incredulous as to the treason of Agrippina and Nero will at least not dispute that the conspiracy of Sejanus was of a most formidable character. Moreover, Tiberius was absent from Rome, and we know that while he had remained in the metropolis his influence had been repeatedly, and we may almost say steadily, exercised to prevent the law being made an instrument of persecution. By whom ? it may be asked. It is too commonly for- gotten that informers and state trials were no new growth of the empire. The system sprang up under the republic. Every young man, on entering public life, looked about for some one to impeach as a means of bringing himself into public notice. The informer did not employ an advocate as with us. He wanted an opportunity for airing his eloquence — the accom- plishment to which all his education had been TIBERIUS. 143 directed. Probably there was not a single man of any note who had not in his time been a prosecntor or defendant, or both.^ A few of the prosecutions for treason were no doubt directed or prompted by Tiberius ; but there is not the smallest evidence that he was in any way responsible for the majority of them. The system was a voluntary and self-acting one. The judges were generally the Senate. Now, though the great nobles, as a rule, would have seats in the Senate, it was chiefly filled with supporters of Imperialism. It was like the assembly now sitting in Paris, which, as every one knows, though contain- ing a bitter opposition, is more Napoleonist than Napoleon himself. There was, therefore, a continual tendency to severity quite independently of Tiberius. If it is said that he ought to have checked his partisans, the answer is that in the first half of his reign he did repeatedly check them, and that instances are not wanting in the last half.^ His ^ The elder Gato was prosecuted near fifty times, and was himself inde£Gktigable in prosecuting others. — ^Plutarch, Cato Major, xv. The exemption from punishment of a condemned criminal if he turned informer was the provision of a law carried by Pompeius. — Appian, de Bell. Civ., ii. 24. ' For discouragement of informers see Tac. Ann. iii. 19, 37, 51, 56, 70 ; iv. 36 ; vi. 30. I may cite Mr. Merivale, who is by no means disposed to deal gently with Tiberius : '* Certain it is that the records of the earlier years of the Tiberian despotism abound in evidence of the Emperor's solicitude for the pure administration of justice, and the constant struggle in which he was engaged with the reckless spirit of violence 144 TIBERIUS. efforts in that direction may have been much more frequent and energetic than we know of, for Tacitus is not likely to enlarge on them more than he can help. After all, the main question is. Were these condemned people guilty or not ? If no one stops to ask it, it is because all the unfevourable criticisms on Tiberius are based on the tacit assumption that he had no right to be where he was, and that con- spiracy was rather creditable than otherwise. But those who believe, as I do, that his government rested on the only true basis for any government, namely, the welfare of the community, and the consent of the large majority of the governed, will hold that it was not only his right, but his duty, to lay a heavy hand on the aristocracy if they would not acquiesce. During the ten years following the departure of Tiberius from Rome, Tacitus records fifty-seven instances of real or supposed offenders against the Emperor. Of these, eighteen seem to have been executed, eighteen committed suicide, eight were acquitted or spared, three were banished, three pur- chased safety by turning informers, one was expelled the Senate, and of six the fate is not mentioned.^ and cruelty of which accusers and judges equaJlj partook. Ultunatelj his own steadfastness and constancy gave way. He yielded to the orrent which he was no longer able to stem." — ^v. 173. y Among the fifty-seven cases above mentioned I have included four TIBERIUS, 145 Most of them axe charged with complicity in the con- spiracy of Sejanus. It must be remembered that Sejanus was detested by the aristocracy, and when he fell they thirsted for vengeance on all his friends. If there was any undue severity then it is more fairly chargeable on the Senate than on the Emperor J In addition to the figures given above, Tacitus says that two years after the fall of Sejanus all his friends who remained in prison were put to death, without trial, in one day, and he describes a scene of carnage like a battle-field. Suetonius, evidently alluding to the same occasion, speaks of twenty persons being executed in one day. 1 suspect Jy were both copying from some random writer; for we find a brother and uncle of Sejanus alive afterwards, though the former had been guilty of an elaborate insult to Tiberius. in which the offence is not clearly specified, and possibly was not political On the other hand, it must be remembered that there is a hiatus of nearly three years in the narrative of Tacitus. ^ The career and fate of Sejanus strikingly resemble those of a much better man, Thomas Cromwell. Both had incurred the savage hatred of the class into which and above which tliey had raised themselves. When Tiberius and Henry VIII. saw cause to distrust their ministers they had only to abandon them to the nobles, who rushed on them like a pack of hounds. If, as Tacitus says, the commonalty joined in the hunt, their fury was more transient as it is less intelligible than that of the nobility. " Placitum posthac ut in reliquos Sejani liberos adver- teretur; vanescente quamquam plebis ira, ac plerisque per priora Bubplicia lenitis." — Tac. Ann. v. 9. The word " placitum " fixes this barbarity on the Senate. 10 146 TIBERIUS, There is another topic which camiot be easily handled here, but which it is impossible entirely to pass over. You are probably aware that Tiberius is charged with having lapsed in his later years into the foulest licentiousness. Now this a sort of charge which from its nature is not capable of direct disproof. A writer who falsifies public events generally lays himself open to refutation. But when he makes assertions as to matters which are essentially of a private and .secret character, how are we to meet him? We can only appeal to probability. I have shown you what the character of Tiberius was through a long life. A more clearly-marked character is not to be found in history. I ask you. Is it credible that, ^such ^ man would break out into dissolute habits at the age of sixty-eight ? If he did he' would be in his grave in a few months, if not weeks. But Tiberius lived ten years at Capreae. He lived to be seventy-eight, and preserved extraordinary vigour of mind and body to the last day of Ms Kfe. Any medical man will tell you that this single fact is a more conclusive refutation of these shameful calumnies than a thousand testimonials to character. You may ask me whence these calumnies sprung, and how they obtained currency. Whenever a sovereign retires from publicity, vile scandals of this kind invariably make their appearance. They may be repeated by the popular voice, but it is not the people TIBERIUS, 147 which invents them. They are generated in fashion- able society, among the idlers and sycophants who hang about courts. On such persons a life of domestic virtue imposes no respect. It adds flavour to the scandal. William III. was a man of finer character than Tiberius, but he resembled him in his unsocial habits and forbidding demeanour, and he did not in his lifetime escape the same foul charges which have clung more persistently to the Eoman emperor. In the vile gossip of Jacobite circles Loo was a Capreae, and Lady Orkney less fastidious than Mallonia.^ When such tales are improbable in themselves, and come to us through suspicious channels, it is but simple justice to the defenceless dead to reject them, or at least to hold them not proven. In concluding this lecture let me say that I hope no one will go away with the impression that, because I approve of the government of the Csesars, I am therefore enamoured of modern Imperialism. The establishment of the empire at Eome was a distinct step in advance. It was the only way in which ancient civilization could be kept together. It was an enormous boon to ninety-nine out of every hundred of the population. Modem Imperialism is retrograde. It prohibits a free press. It refuses the right of public meeting. It fosters the military ^ Sueton. Tiberius, 44. 10—2 148 TIBERIUS. spirit. Lastly, it returns to the hereditary principle, which was irrevocably condemned by the immortal French Eevolution, It is not so bad as the govern- ment of a privileged class. That is all that can be said for it. But no government can meet the wants of modem society unless, whatever be its form, it is in spirit Eepublican. NECKER AND CALONNE: AN OLD STORY. " Maxime solatom et sine obtrectatore fuit prodere de iis quos mors odio aut gratis exemisset." — ^Tacitus. IN the spring of 1787 France was within twenty- four months of the Kevolution. Gb'eat questions, which had been slowly preparing for several centuries, and rapidly ripening during fifteen or twenty years, were on the point of being summarily decided. Privileges criticised, no doubt, but ptill flourishing in fall vigour and activity, tough enough apparently to stand against many a rude shock before they should finally succumb, were within three short years to be not only dead, but beginning to pass out of mind. All thinking men had long foreseen the Eevolution — nay, had confidently predicted it. Yet, after all, it took them by surprise. It is easy to cal- culate how many days or hours you are from Niagara ; but the rapids once entered, you may be wrong as to the minutes. And as historical facts cannot be I50 NECKER AND CALONNE. soberly measured and judged by the man who has witnessed them or lived immediately after them, so is it no less true that the relative proportions of coming events are less distinctly apprehended as they approach and become of practical interest, than when they are first descried on the far horizon by cool speculation. " Noi veggiam come quel, che ha mala luce Le cose, disse, che ne son lontano ; Quando s' appressano, o son, tntto e vano Nostro intelletto." France had drifted under the shadow of the Revolu- tion when Louis XVI. opened the Assembly of Notables on the 22nd of February, 1787. The student who approaches the history of these eventfal months, naturally seeks to discover their central point of interest. Of all the great questions awaiting solution, on which was the battle fought? What was the popular cry ? Was it in Church or State, in the army or the law, in the tenure of land or the regulation of commerce, that men clamoured most loudly for reform ? Nothing of the sort. The issue raised was infinitely simpler. Shall M. de Calonne continue in power, or shall he make way for M. Necker ? Necker was not an untried man. He had presided over the finances in the Maurepas ministry. Maure- NECKER AND CALONNE. 151 pas is a character we seem to know. *' Nimble old man, who for all emergencies has his light jest ; and even in the worst confusion will emerge, cork-like, unsnnk! Small care to him is Perfectibility, Pro- gress of the Species, and Astrcea Redux ; good only that a man of light wit, verging towards fourscore can, in the seat of authority, feel himself important among men. In courtier dialect he is now named ^ the Nestor of France,^— such governing Nestor as France has." Under such a leader an earnest politi- cian had an unsatisfactory time of it. Necker was an exceedingly clever man, and was possessed of many qualities which win, and some that deserve, popu- larity. He was not a great political economist, lijce Turgot ; but he had a wonderful power of mastering financial details, which was equalled only by his skill in manipulating, or, as some said, in cooking them. The confidence reposed in him by great capitalists was unbounded, and, as is frequently the case with that tribe, blind 'and childish. They took for granted that he could work miracles, and he was gratified by their superstition. His intellect, not being under the control of a strong and simple character, embarrassed him by its very acuteness. " He viewed," says one who knew him, " every side of a question so elaborately, his prevision was so susceptible and scrupulous, that he could see nothing but difficulties." Even his admirer M. Louis Blanc 152 NECKER AND CALONNE. allows that lie was ever " hesitating between the shame of being useless and the fear of being too bold, undecided and perplexed just because he saw further than others." Necker's ambition was enormous. Yet it was not exactly that craving for power which is felt by bom rulers of men ; it was rather a passion for fame, an ardent desire to shine before his contemporaries, to be blessed as the saviour of France. He was earnestly bent on doing good, but not by stealth; and his hunger for popularity seriously marred his statesman- ship. While the austere and noble Turgot, in the depth of his love for the oppressed people, was braving its ignorant resentment, Necker was picking up a little applause by cavilling at the great economist in the name of economy. Turgot thought that public opinion stood in sore need of education, and he wished to educate it. Necker worshipped it : " L'un parlait au peuple en l^gislateur, et I'autre en courtisan." ^ When others were in power he was inconsolable. It seemed to him something monstrous and unnatural that any one but M. Necker should flourish like a green bay-tree. " Je ne sais trop pourquoi I'opinion publique n'est plus a mes yeux ce qu'elle etait. Le respect que je lui ai religieusement rendu, s'est affaibli quand je Tai vue soumise aux artifices des m6chants." At such seasons his appetite for incense 1 Droz, vol. !• p. 110. NECKER AND CALONNE. 153 was in some imperfect degree stayed by the adulation of his domestic circle, where an accomplished and ambitious wife ^* lui vouait une sorte de culte.'' ^ But the malicious plots of the court and aristocracy to drive him from power did more than anything else to endear him to the lower orders. They yearned to recompense him for the chagrin which they supposed him to suffer. The language of the popular journals became quite ecstatic ; for instance : " Le coeur se serre en pensant a ce qu'il a souffert, k ce qu'il aurait pu souffrir. On cherche dans ses yeux k deviner les mouvements de son ame. C'est un pere qui revient au milieu de sa famille, qui le cherit ; quoiqu'il n'ait plus rien a oraindre, on s'inqui^te encore, on Pinter- roge pour savoir s'il n'a pas quelque blessure cach^e qu'il ne veut pas decouvrir de peur d'affliger ses enfants.'' ^ The truth is that Necker's egregious vanity did him no harm with the public. When he talked with dignity about " un homme de mon caractere," when he laboured to impress on his chief " quelques unes des grandes idees morales dont mon cceur etait anim^/' when he drew a portrait of the statesman whom France needed, ^* a man in whom intelligence is combined with firmness, prudence, and virtue," not affecting to conceal that she possessed at least one such treasure, 1 Droz, vol. i. p. 79, ' Journal of Gorsas, quoted by M. Louis Blanc, ii. 467. 154 NECKER AND CALONNE. the people took him at his own valuation. They greedily devoured his incessant appeals to public opinion, the style of which, though diffuse and hardly rising to eloquence, was lucid and attractive. He occasionally fell into language which some have admired as the genuine outburst of a philanthropic heart, and others have denounced as sentimental clap- trap. One rather famous passage may be quoted as a sample : — " Almost all civil institutions have been made for the possessors of * property, One is frightened, on opening the statute-book, at being met everywhere by tliis fact. One would think that a small number of men had divided the land betweeD themselves, and then proceeded to make laws to unite and guarantee each other against the multitude, as they would make a fence in tlie woods to defend themselves against wild beasts. And yet it must be said that when laws of property, justice, and liberty have been established, next to nothing has been done for the most numerous class of citizens. What do your laws of property matter to us ? they may say. We have no property. Your laws of justice ? We have notliing to defend. Your laws of liberty ? If we do not work, to-morrow we shall die."^ It is all very well to sneer at outbursts of this sort, or to denounce them savagely as unworthy of a states- man, but they tell on the masses. While fastidious or cynical politicians receive a warmly expressed senti- ment with shouts of derision, and think reiterated allusions to it an effective way of baiting an opponent, it is being treasured in the hearts of the people. ^ Sur la legislation et le commerce des grains. Conclusion. NECKER AND CALONNE. 155 Even now there are those who are fascinated by decker's gushing language. In the eyes of M. Louis Blanc he is a thinker who had calmly judged political economy and found it wanting, and is therefore to be set above Turgot. But Necker was not precisely the man to be in advance of his age. He was far enough from any shade of socialism, and even from a sincere relish for equality, as his later writings abundantly show. The simple truth is that his intellect was rather flabby. Clear-sighted in details, hazy in his conception of general principles, he was eager to strike at this or that abuse, but he shrank with nervous dread from anything like systematic coherent thought in politics. He would assuredly have refused the deductions which seem to M. Louis Blanc to follow so obviously from such a passage as that I have quoted. ^' Chez Necker," says the judicious and im- partial M.Henri Martin, '41 faut bien le dire, la protestation en faveur des proletaires reste a Petat de sentiment." In a word, it was soft stuff. When we read it we must remember that the great financier had abeady written plays, and was destined to compose not only a " Cours de Morale Eeligieuse,'' but a novel with the romantic title, '' Suites funestes d'une seule faute." Necker had resigned in 1781 somewhat hastily, because he found himself thwarted by his colleagues. Fully persuaded that he was indispensable, he made J 156 NECKER AND CALONNE. no doubt that in a few weeks he would come in again on his own terms. His retirement, however, lasted longer than he expected, and in the meantime things moved so fast that, when he did return, it was to face difficulties unprovided for by his counting-house philosophy. France, during the eclipse of her Necker, had been under the treatment of Calonne, and steps had been taken which, good or bad, were irrevocable. " On the morality of Calonne," says M. Martin, " there is but one opinion ; on his capacity there are two.'' This is a judgment which would have mortified Calonne if he had lived to read it. In the first part of it he would have acquiesced with little concern ; but in the second he would have recognised that he was punished ji?ar ou il avaitpeche ; for lack of ability was certainly not the cause of the evil celebrity he has obtained in history. There are statesmen who are too clever by half. In the absence of all sincerity and all genuine conviction their counsel is inevitably turned into foolishness ; therefore posterity, undazzled by the momentary glitter, judging and rightly judging them by the ensemble of their policy, — if a series of manoeuvres may be dignified by that name, — doubts whether they had any capacity at all, — whether they were not mere mountebanks. Calonne was a man absolutely free firom all prejudice or predilection in politics. It was perfectly immaterial to him whether he governed wisely or foolishly, on old principles or NECKER AND CALONNE. 157 according to new lights, by the favour of the king or by the support of the people. His ambition was not of a lofty kind. It amounted merely to a determina- tion to get to the top of the tree, to be looked up to by good society, to have the power of dispensing fevours and distmctions among personages of a more. exalted rank than himself, and he had no objection to govern well if it conduced to that result. To Necker such a position would have given no satisfaction, un- less he could feel that he was earning the approbation of good men. Calonne cared little for the approbation of any one so long as he could sit in high places. With him, the end being base, all means were equally eligible, either simultaneously or successively. When he entered on ofl&ce, he laid down for himself the rule, that the first requisite for success was to inspire confidence. Necker had been able to raise loan after loan, simply because capitalists believed in him. His resignation had been looked on as a public calamity, because it was feared that the capitalists would lend to no one else. Unless Calonne could conquer their confidence, it was impossible that he could remain in office. Many an insolvent banker has kept afloat for years, and perhaps ultimately saved himself, by show- ing no signs of distress, when the least appearance of economy or retrenchment would have destroyed his credit. Calonne did but pursue this familiar method, not altogether despairing of ultimate success, but 158 NECKER AND CALONNE, determined, at all events, to hold on as long as he could. No finance minister could play this game of brag at the present day, because public resources and public incumbrances cannot be materially disguised. But French finances under the ancien regime were as absolutely a secret as the accounts, of a private firm. The publication of Necker's Compte Rendu had for the first time thrown some light upon them ; but they were still a mystery, and the more so that in that celebrated state-paper Necker had considerably cooked them. The plan of Calonne was therefore not so wild as it seems ; the best proof of which is that he did restore confidence, and did manage to bleed the capi- talists to the tune of nineteen millions sterling in three years. But further, he' saw that all Nocker's popularity with the country had not enabled him to bear up against the dislike of the court ; and he was determined not to lose the game for want of support in that quarter. To us it seems a proof of infatuation, that within three years of the Revolution a minister should still have been counting on court favour as an element of solid strength. It is easy to see Calonne's mistake now. But in France, up to that time, court favour had been the surest foundation on which power could be built. The minister was literally the servant of the king. His promotion was notified to him verbally by a simple valet de chambre. " Monsieur So-and-so, the King has made you minister.'' Calonne NECKER AND CALONNE, 159 is not to be set down as a fool because he thought such a system might last a few years longer than it did. That sweeping reforms must soon come he saw clearly, more clearly than Necker, who desired them indeed ardently, but always slavishly overrated the strength of the old regime. The confidence of the people and the sovereign once gained, Calonne in- tended to appropriate some of the plans of the re- formers, and, in his unbounded self-reliance, he flattered himself that his cleverness and tact would carry measures which had failed in more awkward hands. He is not the only statesman who has been out in his reckoning, from simple incapacity to com- prehend the value of a decent reputation — even to an impostor. For some time all went well. A knot of serious and earnest men, the partisans of Necker, might pro- test as they pleased against a worship of successful eflErontery, and fret over the lengthened exclusion of their chief from oflS.ce; but the popularity of the minister was considerable. Money poured in from the innocent capitalists, and was lavished on jobs in the interest of every one who seemed to be in a position to render support of any kind in return.^ It ^ " I told our friends at Warrington that there appeared to me to have grown up under the present Government a system of what I called, in regard to the public expenditure, making things pleasant all round. That means going from town to town, granting what this community i6o NECKER AND CALONNE. is astonishing how easily people come to look upon the interests of the community as identical with their own. We are generally given to understand that Calonne's ministry was an undisguised scramble among the courtiers for the last plunder of the wreck. But it certainly did not appear in that light either to courtiers or people. ** I was always certain that man would save France," said a great nobleman, with genuine enthusiasm, " but I never thought he would do it so soon." The capitalists, as we have seen, were satisfied; If there was one province of France where the minister was likely to be ill-received wants, granting what that community wants, granting what the other community wants, and leaving out of sight that large public which un- fortunately has not got the voices and the advocates ready always to defend it against these local and particular claims. I told you a story of a case where a candidate in the Government interest at this moment goes to a constituency, and complains that he could not get a Liberal Government to surrender for jB2,500 a debt due to the Government of j620,000, but that when a Conservative Government came in he found there was no difficulty at all in arlranging the matter. Therefore he says, ' Eeturn me to Parliament, and not a member of the liberal party.' " {Speech of Mr, Gladstone, Times, Oct. 26, 1868.) *' It is far more easy to work the Parliamentary machine by a lavish expen- diture of money, than it is to procure, or promote, or insist upon any due system of economy. They make things easy by what is called greasing the wheels. I recollect only last session speaking to a very eminent member of the Conservative side of the House about the policy of the Government, and he said that their policy was to make the thing work by giving a little money all round." — {Speech of Mr, Bright^ Times, Nov. 11, 1868.) NECKER AND CALONNE. i6i it was Brittany; Did he give the Bretons a wide berth ? Not a bit of it. He made a point of paying them a visit, harangned them with his usual bounce, smartness, and well-simulated candour, and left them shouting *^Vive Calonne!" "A feat,'' says M. Martin, " truly incredible." All the world saw that he was borrowing. But what had Necker done but borrow ? Necker's loans had amounted to upwards of seventeen millions sterling in five years. Necker had been valued just because he could raise loans ; and now it appeared that Calonne could raise them, if anything, faster. For three years was this game carried on. M. Louis Blanc believes that Calonne was deliberately making things worse, in order that the privileged classes might be driven into a comer and compelled to submit to reform; and the fact that, after all, he exaggerated the deficit in his statement to the Notables does seem to show that he relied on this means of silencing opposition. Whether he was driven to unfold the second part of his scheme earlier and more abruptly than he had designed, it is impos- sible to determine. The necessity came; the capi- talists took fright ; no more money was to be had ; and there was nothing for it but to play his trump card at once. The first thing to be done was to break the dis- agreeable news to the king. Louis had commenced 11 i62 NECKER AND CALONNE. his reign with a new-fangled eagerness to be a pattern sovereign. But the good seed lay on stony ground. lEis fat soul soon wearied of well-doing and settled down to field sports. To this animal Calonne now came with his awkward story. The impending cata- strophe, he said, was not of his creating ; Neoker had bequeathed it to him ; the famous Compte Pendu had been cooked : the deficit had been steadily growing since the days of Louis XIY. ; there was but one remedy — retrenchment. He then proceeded to sketch out a series of reforms of the most sweeping kind, some of them long demanded by enlightened men, others crude, and even whimsical, such as the pay- ment of taxes in kind. The king gasped for breath. '' Why,'' said he, " this is simply Necker over again." But he had not the manliness to send the impudent gambler about his business, and call to his counsels the only man who by special aptitude and deliberate conviction was entitled to preside over such a policy. Calonne persuaded him that there was no reason why that solemn disagreeable Necker should have a monopoly of reform and its credit, and obtained a pledge of the royal support. The instrument by which the new reforms were to be carried out was worthy of the projector. Calonne was one of those statesman who are cursed with in- genuity, that most fatal of all gifts in politics, where breadth and simplicity can alone avail. The device NECKER AND CALONNE, 163 of an Assembly of Notables seemed to him peculiarlj'' liappy. It was old. It was new. It was startling, It was safe. He could leer with one eye at the ardent champions of reform, while with the other he winked at the alarmed defenders of privilege. He would pack this Assembly by drawing half of it from that stratum of French society which, selfish as it was, had no speculative or sentimental prejudices, — atheist prelates scheming for promotion, and men of fashion, who petted Franklin, dined with D'Holbach, and laughed at the impudent hits of Beaumarchais. On their votes surely a reforming minister might reckon. The other half he would ^' educate " by assuring them that he was but developing the profoundest principles of the monarchy. The Notables met, and Calonne hardUy addressed himself to his task with the air of a man certain of success. His first stroke was as maladroit as it was coarse. The opening sentence of his harangue in- formed the Notables that his plans were honoured by the personal approbation of Majesty. Unfortunately the sovereign was not venerated as a conclusive authority in politics, and even a packed Assembly thinks itself good for something else than registering a foregone conclusion. The financial statement was introduced by the minister with matchless audacity. He had studied economy ; yes, economy ; not, it was true, the niggardly petty cheese-paring, which some i64 NECKER AND CALONNE, ministers had dignified by that name, but a large and liberal economy which consisted — in short which con- sisted in swelling the expenditure. But the dismay which the confession of the deficit excited gave place to a stronger feeling when the speaker went on with flippant pomposity to unfold his programme of reform. If he had any admirers left in the Assembly, gaping devotees who had believed to the last that their great medicine-man had some miraculous shift by which he would keep the game alive, here he parted company with them. It was in vain that he replied to attacks with infiinite cleverness and assurance, and had a retort ready for every assailant. The Assembly which he had himself devised and summoned into existence, turned upon him, and gave him plainly to understand that, whether his plans were good or bad, whether he was prepared to govern as a Reformer or a Conservative, go he must. Consistent, thorough- going partisans of privilege, such as Richelieu and Segur, denounced him as a traitor for having convoked the Assembly at all; reformers would hear of no minister but the virtuous Necker ; the sovereign, of whose personal support he had bragged, threw him over ; and Calonne reluctantly bade farewell to office, leaving as the one substantial result of his administra- tion that old landmarks and barriers had been reck- lessly beaten down by the accredited representative of privilege. The impossibility of letting things NECKER AND CALONNE, 165 remain as they were, either in Church or State, had been officially proclaimed. In the struggle for place and popularity, all prominent men had recognised reform as a necessity; and however they might repent it, thenceforth there was for them no drawing back. For the people had heard words spoken which it would never again forget. The fall of Calonne did not immediately realise the hopes of Necker. The court and the privileged classes were not yet prepared to see France ruled by an ex-banker, who did not even prefix the de to his name. Sixteen months of Brienne succeeded. Then there was an attempt to induce the great financier to coalesce with Brienne ; in other words, to sell his talents and, what was worth more, his popularity to a clique of official hacks who loathed radical reform apd would have thwarted him at every step. But it must be said for Necker that he had too much spirit for that. Though dying for office, he was ready to wait a little longer rather than compromise his independence. His native vanity here rose into a proper pride. Laugh at him as we may, the man really did wish to do good, wished it ardently, and he was determined that when next he took office he would not be harnessed with a jibbing team. It was destined that he should not fail for want of his chance. The court surrendered at discretion, and Necker came into power triumphant, unfettered, the idol of the i66 NECKER AND CALONNE, populace, Avith every qualification for governing except a strong character and some knowledge of his own intentions. The great question of the day, the first which the new minister was called on to determine, was the constitution of the States-General which had been promised by the king, and were to meet the next year. Were the representatives of the Third Estate to be equal in number to each of the other two, or to both of them united ? Were the three orders to sit in separate chambers or in one — to vote by order or by head ? For simplifying finances, for a discrimi- nating reduction or imposition of taxes, for a severe economy, for legislation tending to promote material prosperity, Necker was the very man. There he was on his own ground, and could tread firmly. But he was now confronted with political difficulties of another order, and his defects of mind and character became at once apparent. For his own part, he desired — so far as he knew what he desired — an Assembly which would support Necker. Sometimes he feared that the States -General would be too tame, too easily moulded by the privileged classes. At other times he was filled with nervous apprehension that it would hurry him into reforms of a nature and scope which he had never contemplated, and to the direction of which he felt himself as incompetent as he was disinclined. Being entirely without system in NECKER AND CALONNE. 167 politics, he had no other guide tor his action than public opinion. An English statesman now-a-days, who is similarly unprovided, can get along after a fashion without his nakedness being discovered, because a free press, free public meetings, and representative institutions afford a constant test of public opinion in all its variations. But in France, before the Revolution, public opinion had not organised itself; accurate gauges of it did not exist ; and if they had existed, people were not yet trained to read them. The convocation of the States- General was a leap in the dark indeed. Poor Necker, peering around him for the straw to show how the wind blew, could think of no better way of feeling the public mind than calling together once more the selfish, impotent, and ridiculous Assembly devised by Calonne. The Notables, as might have been foreseen, voted against the doubling of the Third Estate, against vote by head, against redistribution of constituencies. A cry of indignation went up from France. Addresses from municipalities and other corporate bodies poured in. Necker had got his cue. It was with the King in Council that the real decision rested under the old regime. In the council, therefore, Necker set him- self to calm the forebodings of privilege.^ "Do not," he said, " be so jealous of this Third Estate ; 1 Rapport fait au Roi dans son Conseil, — CEuvres de Necker, vi. 432. 1 68 NECKER AND CALONNE. do not apprehend such terrible things from it. Look at its enthusiastic loyalty towards the present occu- pant of the throne ; it will never think of attacking property or privilege — privilege being a property just as sacred as any other. I do not advocate the double representation because I want it to overbear the other orders by weight of numbers, which I should think very undesirable, but because such a concession to justice will satisfy public opinion. Once these inequalities adjusted, you will find that all three orders have much the same views about legislation. How should it be otherwise when good government is the manifest interest of all classes alike? Remember what weight the privileged classes will . continue to have by their wealth and social prestige ; besides there are so many subjects on which the deputies of the Third Estate can give us valuable information and advice ; but if nothing else weighs with you '' (and here Necker's loose sentiment bordered on true insight) '* listen to the inarticulate voice of Europe everywhere joining in on the side of justice." To publish a Report read at the Council of Ministers was an unheard-of proceeding. But with his usual restless itching for compliment, Necker rushed into print, and was thus at the pains to put on record for ever predictions destined to be so signally falsified by the event. For the moment, however, he tasted NECKER AND CALONNE 169 triumph. j\I?»[. (U^ jSTiveriiois, dc Fourguciix, do Luz(»rii(^ d(3 Saint Priost, do Villedeuil, de Montnioriu — of such world-famous porsouagcs, in addition to Ncckcr and good harmless old ilaleshcrbos, was the Council of the King of France composed the year before the Ee volution — were convinced or .silenced, and the royal decree went forth, conceding the double representation of the Third Estate and redistribution of constituencies. As for the remaining and still more important question of voting by order or by head, Necker characteristically let it alone. He knew, every one knew, that it would arise the first day the States met, that it would not settle itself, that the King would have to pronounce on it, that it would be wiser to pronounce at once than to wait till the orders had quarrelled about it before the eyes of Franco. N'ocker never moved in earnest till he had the maximum of force at his back. Moreover, he thought that the Third Estate had perhaps been sufficiently strength- ened, for his purpose ; if not, he had a weapon in reserve. In the meantime he tacitly allowed it to be inferred that he sympathised with the most liberal view, and he revelled in the sweets of a popularity to which there was no parallel in French history. I'KINTED BY TAYLOll AND CO., LITTLK fH'F.KX STREET, LIXCOLNS INN' FIKIpN. 7398 085 / *» » THE BORROWER WILL BE CHARGED AN OVERDUE FEE IF THIS BOOK IS NOT RETURNED TO THE LIBRARY ON OR BEFORE THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. NON-RECEIPT OF OVERDUE NOTICES DOES NOT EXEMPT THE BORROWER FROM OVERDUE FEES. Harvard College WIdener Library Cambridge, MA 021 38 (61 7) 495-241 3